Are You Gonna Bark All Day Little Doggie, Or Are You Gonna Bite?

Michael Madsen
1957 - 2025
Actor Michal Madsen passed away today at age 67.  His career spanned forty years with a filmography that includes War Games, The Natural, The Doors, Thelma & Louise, Straight Talk, Free Willy, Wyatt Earp, Species, Mulholland Falls, Donnie Brasco, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, but I'll always remember him best as Bill's brother Budd in Kill Bill, and his iconic performance as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs.

The Death Of An Iconic American Restaurant

Cracker Barrel
Schuylkill Mall Road - Frackville, PA
We stopped here for dinner on my birthday.  I've always enjoyed this place.  I'm not generally a fan of the country aesthetic, but this chain had a very pleasant atmosphere.  The dark colors and dim lighting are especially appealing to me in a world where businesses seem to want everything to be lit up like an airport food court.  The antique tools and advertisements hanging on the walls gave the place a unique feel, and the fireplace is very inviting, especially when we're seated near it on a cold winter's night.  The delicious and uncomplicated homestyle dinners fit right in at a place like this.

Unfortunately, the charm of Cracker Barrel is on borrowed time.  Their new CEO apparently feels like the defining characteristic of the chain is a problem that is responsible for their downward trend in sales.  They've started remodeling their restaurants to look like the one in this photo which was shared by the chain to give customers an idea of what their local restaurant will look like when they are remodeled.  Everything that felt special and homey about the place has been eliminated.

Thankfully, the Cracker Barrel that's closest to home for us has not yet been gutted, so I took a few photos of the place while it's still the cozy and comfortable place that we've always loved.  I can't imagine that we'll be visiting very often when this changes.

It was cool while it lasted.  Only thing we can do is enjoy it while it's still here before it becomes yet another business who outsmart themselves and eliminate the thing that made them special in the first place in what will very likely be their final years.

Level 45

Time really does feel like it goes by faster as you get older.  I'm 45 years old today, and it's absolutely blowing my mind.  I feel like I had just turned 25 yesterday.

I'm breaking tradition this year by not going to a ballgame on my birthday.  Frankly, the cost of going to a Phillies game has reached a point where I have a difficult time justifying it anymore.  It worked out well, especially since tonight's game was postponed due to rain before it even got started.  We went to the Lehigh Valley Zoo instead and stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way home.

What Do You Want From Me, Blood?

Little Shop Of Horrors
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Sunday night was an opportunity to catch a movie that I grew up with and missed out on seeing at the drive-in a few years ago.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

Little Shop Of Horrors was last shown at the Mahoning on August 21, 2022.  I wanted to go, but it was on the same day as the rescheduled Blue October and Goo Goo Dolls concert that we had tickets for (it had been postponed twice due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

This isn't an Audrey II statue - it's a costume.  Vince from the Mahoning Merch Market made it, and he's inside of it in this photo.  A still shot doesn't do justice to how incredible this thing is.  The neck moves up and down as well as back and forth, and the mouth opens and closes.  It's one of the coolest cosplays I've ever seen on the lot.

 

When the sun went down, the 1986 classic Little Shop Of Horrors hit the screen.  This was one of those movies that my grandfather recorded on VHS for me during one of the HBO or Cinemax free preview weekends.  I didn't pop that tape in the VCR as often as Temple Of Doom, but I did watch it quite a few times when I was a kid.  I'm still not a big fan of musicals, but it's a fun flick and I'm glad that I had a chance to see it on 35mm at the drive-in.

And that's a wrap on another fun week at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater.

Schlock Til You Drop

Schlock-O-Rama IX
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

This weekend was one of my favorite annual events at the drive-in, and my fifth consecutive year that I've been in attendance for it.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

Schlock-O-Rama is a celebration of films that were primarily shown in small independent theaters and drive-in theaters when they were first released.  The genre of these films include horror, sci-fi, action, kung fu, and exploitation films that have become synonymous with the drive-in theater experience in the second half of the 20th century.

 

Night One - Friday, June 27

The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula / Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde / Atom Age Vampire / Werewolves On Wheels

The first film of Schlock-O-Rama IX was The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires, which was released in the United States under the title The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula.  This 1974 kung fu flick was a joint production of Hammer Films and Shaw Bros.

This is the story of the evil monk Kah (Chan Shen) who travels to Transylvania in the early 1800's to summon Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson) to travel to China with him to restore the Seven Golden Vampires to power.  He agrees, but Dracula must posses Kah's body to leave his castle and travel, so Chan Shen plays the role of Dracula throughout most of the film.  The plot jumps a hundred years to find Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) with his son Leyland (Robin Stewart) at Chungking University where he's giving a lecture on the Seven Golden Vampires and the village that they control.  After the lecture, he is approached by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) who is the grandson of a farmer who killed one of the Seven Golden Vampires.  Ching confirms the location of the village and asks Van Helsing to accompany his brothers and his sister on a mission to the village to defeat the rest of the vampires.  A wealthy widow named Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege), who's life was saved by the Hsi family, agrees to finance their journey on the condition that she accompany the group, and off they go to engage in a kung-fu war with the vampires.

This film was an excellent way to kick off the weekend.  It's a lot of fun, and it defines what Shlock-O-Rama is all about.  It found its way to the United States in 1979 where it was shown mostly in grindhouse and drive-in theaters and has gone on to become a cult classic.  I'm sorry to say that I wasn't able to find it streaming anywhere at the moment, but if you like horror and kung fu, this is one to keep your eyes open for.

Next up was the 1976 blaxploitation horror film Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, which was re-released in the United States under the alternate title Decision For Doom.  This is the story of Dr. Henry Pride (Bernie Casey), who is an African American doctor who is working on experimental medication that can restore a damaged liver.  He tests the medication on himself which results in his transformation into a violent white man with superhuman strength.

I have conflicted feelings when it comes to the blaxploitation genre.  There are a few of them that I just can't get behind; specifically the ones that lean into negative stereotypes.  The example that immediately comes to mind is Super Soul Brother, which I saw at the Mahoning last year for AGFA Triple Ripper III.  This film has virtually no African American characters that aren't portrayed in an ignorant manner so it's not funny or interesting to me in the slightest.  It's just blatantly racist crap that they were able to get away with because the actors are black.  On the other hand, there are blaxploitation flicks like Blacula and Abby that are fantastic.

I'm happy to say that Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde falls in the Blacula camp.  It's an excellent flick that adds an interesting twist on the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story.  Bernie Casey delivers a great performance as both halves of his personality.  The NFL veteran has an impressive resume in Hollywood.  I know him best for his roles as U.N. Jefferson in Revenge Of The Nerds, and Bill & Ted's history teacher Mr. Ryan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  It's available to stream on Tubi, and I highly recommend it if you want to dive into the genre.

 

Friday night's third film was a black and white Italian horror that premiered in 1960 as Seddok: L'erede di Satana, which translates to Seddok: The Heir of Satan.  The movie was re-titled Atom Age Vampire when it was dubbed into English and released in the United States three years later, which is an odd choice since the movie has nothing to do with vampires.  Now that I come to think of it, the "Atom Age" part of the title doesn't make much sense either.

The first two minutes of the movie are a breakup scene.  Pierre is about to ship out to sea, and he breaks up with his girlfriend Jeanette because she won't quit her job as an entertainer.  The research that I've done online say that she's a stripper, but there's nothing in the American cut of this film which makes that clear.  Jeanette drives away in tears and swerved off of an embankment to avoid hitting another car.  The accident leaves her with a massive scar on half of her face and neck.  Jeanette is tricked by a woman named Monique to leave the hospital and to go to Professor Alberto Levin's home so that he can treat her with his miracle serum called Derma 28 which can restore her beauty.  The treatment works and Alberto becomes obsessed with her.  It turns out that the effects of Derma 28 are short lived, and Alberto finds that he must kill other women to obtain the glands that he needs to continue producing Derma 28 for Jeanette.

The whole movie plays out like an old soap opera with melodramatic dialogue from nearly everyone in the cast.  It's not the kind of movie that I'd recommend to most modern horror fans, but it's exactly the kind of film that I like to see at Schlock-O-Rama.  It's a fun, schlocky flick short runtime and it's in a style that adds variety to the event.  This one's also on Tubi if you're curious.

The final movie of the first night of Schlock-O-Rama IX was the 1971 horror / biker flick Werewolves On Wheels.  This is the story of a biker gang called The Devil's Advocates who are taken in by a group of people who appear to be monks.  The monks give food to the bikers, but we soon learn that these monks aren't what they seem to be and their motives are sinister.  The title does give away some of the plot, but it takes more twists and turns than I expected.  Check it out on Tubi.

This was a great way to cap off Friday night, and I'm happy to say that I was able to stay awake for the whole thing.  I had to nap earlier in the day and watch most of this film standing in front of my car to keep from nodding off, but  I made it.  The movie ended almost exactly at 4:00 am and I had just enough left in me to drive home and collapse in bed.

Night Two - Saturday, June 28

The Devil's Rain / Satan's Cheerleaders / Piranha II: The Spawning / Bog

The movies started a little earlier in the evening on Saturday since it ran so late the night before.  However, as you can see from the title card for The Devil's Rain, it was dark enough to project a bright and vivid picture.

The Devil's Rain was the movie that I was looking forward to seeing the most this weekend.  My friend Mike saw it before, and he sold it to me as a film where you get to see Ernest Borgnine melting for ten minutes.  He wasn't exaggerating one bit.  Cary had to run to the restroom, but she didn't want to miss the end of the film.  After about five minutes of the scene in question, she said "Oh fuck, just die already".  Mike chuckled and let her know that the scene was only at the halfway point.

This movie is memorable for several reasons other than the long and drawn out fate of Jonathan Corbis and his followers.  The production team hired the founder of The Church of Satan, Anton LaVey to serve as the technical advisor for the film.  He and his partner Diane appear in the film as well.  This film also marks the big screen debut of John Travolta who played a member of Corbis' Satanic cult in a minor role.  Actress Joan Prather, who played Julie Preston, introduced Travolta to Scientology during filming.

In addition to Borgnine, Travolta, and Prather, the film features the great William Shatner as Mark Preston, a Christian man who is forced to become a member of the Corbis cult, and Eddie Albert as a psychic researcher.  Albert is probably best remembered for his starring role as Oliver Douglas in the classic series Green Acres.  The film also features Ida Lupino, who has the distinction of being the only woman to direct an episode of The Twilight Zone (The Masks) and the only Twilight Zone director who also starred in an episode (The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine).

Like most of the films shown on Friday night, The Devil's Rain is available to stream on Tubi, and I highly recommend it to any fan of horror movies.  It's a wild ride!

 

Saturday night's second movie was Greydon Clark's 1977 horror sexploitation flick Satan's Cheerleaders.  There's far less nudity in this film than you might be expecting from the title, but 

this film is still the very definition of 70's schlock.  Most of the acting is terrible and the story is ludicrous, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to watch!  It's the story of a high school cheerleading squad and their good-natured but absolutely clueless coach.  The ladies are kidnapped by a Satanic cult led by a Sheriff and his wife in the hopes that they can use one of them as a virgin sacrifice, but things don't go according to plan.  Check it out on Tubi.

Next up was the 1982 horror sequel Piranha II: The Spawning.  This movie is technically the directorial debut of James Cameron, but it's been widely reported that he worked for only two weeks on the film before he either quit or was fired, depending on which side of the story you hear.  In either case, the producers kept his name on the film as its director, much to The Terminator director's dismay.

My wife was familiar with this film because she watched it with her grandmother when she was a little girl.  She accurately described this movie to me by saying "this time, they can fly".  That pretty much says it all.  The movie is pure schlocky goodness from start to finish, featuring man-eating fish who were described by Tim Healey's book The World's Worst Movies as "haddock with dentures".

This is one of only two films from Schlock-O-Rama IX that isn't currently available on Tubi.  You can rent it from a few streaming services though, and it's fairly inexpensive and easy to find on DVD or Bluray.  It's so stupid fun that I'd consider it to be a must-watch.

The final film of Schlock-O-Rama this year was the 1979 independent horror film Bog, starring the great Aldo Ray.  It's a creature feature about a prehistoric sea creature that lives in a rural blog.  It begins to feed on fishermen and anyone else who comes into its territory.

If I were to rank all of the films of Schlock-O-Rama IX from favorite to least favorite, this one would be at the bottom of my list.  Most of the first three quarters of the film are people having conversations about the bog monster either in offices or on the telephone (or both).  It's still fun to watch and a worthy inclusion in the lineup for this weekend though.  You can check it out on Tubi.

Like the first night, I was able to stay awake for all four films.  I think I may have drifted off for about five minutes during Piranha II, but that's it.  Saturday night ended after 3:00 am, and I'm happy to have made it through all eight films.

 

And that's a wrap on Schlock-O-Rama IX.  This continues to be one of my favorite, if not my very favorite weekend on the Mahoning calendar.  It's either this or VHS fest, both of which feature films that have a similar vibe to them.  If you can only make it to the Mahoning for one weekend a year and you want a true drive-in experience, this is the event that I'd recommend that you attend.  It's the closest any of us are likely to ever get to a true drive-in experience from the second half of the 20th century.

The Cobra

Dave Parker
1951 - 2025
One of the greatest players of his generation passed away earlier today at age 74, just over four weeks before the ceremony where he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Hold On To Your Vaginas

M3gan 2.0
Blumhouse Productions (2025)
The sequel to the 2022 film M3gan is alright.  It's pretty heavy handed with the whole "AI is going to kill us all and kids shouldn't have screen time" narrative, but it's a pretty typical horror sequel in that it's not as good as the original, but not horrible either.

Let's Go To Your Place And Have An Avocado Sandwich

2025 Patreon Screening #3
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

The Patreon screenings have all been a big hit this season, and June was no exception.

The movie of the night was the sequel to the 1958 horror classic The Blob.  Son Of Blob (aka: Beware! The Blob) was released in 1972, and it's the very definition of bizarre cinema.  The timing is pretty great because it fits perfectly with the tone of Schlock-O-Rama, which kicks off tomorrow night.  Parts of this movie looked familiar to me, so I think that I may have seen it (or parts of it) when I was a kid, but I can't say for sure.  Either way, I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to see it on 35mm at the drive-in.

The story on how this film came to be screened is pretty interesting as well.  Another patron of the drive-in has a son who got ahold of his parents credit card and ordered a bunch of things without permission.  One of the things that he ordered was a 35mm print of this film.  The family weren't able to return it, so they were kind enough to bring it down to the drive-in for a Patreon screening.  The print was a little red, but it was otherwise in excellent shape, and it made for a very fun night.

June Summer Sizzlers

June Summer Sizzlers
K-Mart (1988)
This advertisement was shared by Dinosaur Dracula earlier this year. All six of these dinners combined cost less than your average meal at a chain restaurant today, and five of them come with a beverage.

The Ghost Of Black Friday's Past

Crucible Of Terror
Goodtimes Home Video (1971)
I picked this tape up from the VHS wall at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater over the weekend.  The first thing that I noticed was the fact that it was released by Goodtimes.  This is generally a red flag for tape collectors as they were notorious for putting out a poor quality product, but the Zayre price sticker on the cellophane caught my eye.

Standard Speaker - July 28, 1989

Zayre's was a discount department store chain that operated in the eastern United States from 1956 to 1990.  The Zayre's in my hometown was the west end anchor store in the Laurel Mall from 1973 to 1989.  My grandparents usually stopped in this store when they brought me to the mall when I was a kid.  That, combined with the fact that Zayre's disappeared when I was nine years old when the chain was purchased by Ames, are the reasons that the store is one of the things that I associate with my childhood in the 80's.

I flipped the Crucible Of Terror box over to read the description of the movie and was surprised to find that the original sales receipt was slipped into the cellophane on the back.

The receipt is from Zayre Store #240.  So far, I haven't been able to find out which city had Store #240, but the date of November 28'th, 1987 shows that it was purchased for $5.99 on the day after Thanksgiving.  This could possibly have been a gift that someone purchased while they were doing their Black Friday shopping.

Citizen's Voice - October 24, 1987

The closest Zayre's sales circular that I could find to the date that this movie was purchased was a newspaper insert that went out one week before Halloween, and this tape is listed as one of the items available for sale.

The Crucible Of Terror tape was part of a collection of horror movies that they were selling for $5.99.  The other movies named in the circular are Little Shop Of Horrors, Night Of The Living Dead, Horror Express, Alice Sweet Alice, and Psychomania.

The tape played about as well as I could have hoped from a Goodtimes release.  Most of their VHS releases that I've come across use as little tape as possible to fit the film in either LP or SLP speed, so there's a ton of static and tracking issues throughout the entire movie.  These tapes usually played like crap when they were brand new in the 80's and 90's, so I'm amazed that this copy of Crucible Of Terror that is almost forty years old played as well as it did.

 

I was going to encode it to share, but Flick Vault has already uploaded it with a much sharper picture quality.  It's a pretty good movie about a psychotic artist.  Click here or click play above to watch it.

Don't Change The Channel. Don't Touch That Dial.

UHF

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Sunday night at the Mahoning was dedicated to one of my favorite comedies ever made; the 1989 Weird Al Yankovic classic UHF.

The special concession item of the night was the snack that George Newman makes for his best friend Bob to cheer him up after he got the both of them fired from Big Edna's Burger World.  The Twinkie Wiener Sandwich is a Twinkie that's sliced down the middle like a hot dog bun, then stuffed with a hot dog and topped with Easy Cheese.

 

The MVP on the lot was Stiricide who set up her own Wheel Of Fish game show in front of her car.

Everyone was welcome to come up and spin the Wheel Of Fish to win a little plastic fish.

You could, of course, trade in your fish for the Mystery Box.  What was inside the mystery box?  Nothing... absolutely nothing!

The cherry on top of this awesome sundae was a group of guys sitting outside of the car parked behind her who would scream in unison "Stooopid!  You're so Stooopid!" every time someone chose the box.  It echoed across the lot and made us laugh every single time.  Angie and I were sitting three rows away just relaxing in our chairs, listening to Vince's DJ set of Weird Al classics, and talking with Tom and Jackson when we'd hear the chorus indicating that yet another Wheel Of Fish contestant chose the Mystery Box.

I won a little grey fish with blue eyes.

 

An introduction to the film by Weird Al Yankovic was played on the big screen right before the start of the film, which was pretty damn cool!

Finally, we got to see the comedy classic UHF on the big screen.  It had to be projected from the digital booth because no known copies of the film on 35mm are known to exist, but for as cool as watching movies on 35mm is, I don't think that this being a digital presentation really mattered all that much to anyone in attendance.  The lot was packed full of Weird Al fans and everyone had a great time.

This was our second time seeing UHF at the drive-in as it was screened on August 2nd, 2021 at the We Saved The Mahoning event that celebrated the fact that the solar farm that had threatened to replace the drive-in had pulled out as a result of fan protests.  That was a special night for obvious reasons, but since all of the movies that were shown at that event were secret features, the fans in attendance weren't specifically there for Weird Al or UHF.  This time was different.  In fact, with the exception of the screenings of The Room and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this movie had more fan interaction than anything else I've seen at the Mahoning.  The audience erupted in cheers several times during the movie and called back some of its lines, the loudest of which was Gedde Watanabe shouting "Stooopid... you're so stooopid!" at the Wheel Of Fish contestant.  I think they might have heard us at the Wal-Mart down the street for that line.  The whole night was an incredible experience, and I hope they do it again sometime in the future.