Fun at the Movies




There's a new drive in theater being built about 10 miles from my home. Hopefully it will be ready to open next spring. I look forward to taking my sons to it many times. 4 years ago I took my oldest son Ethan to a run down drive in about 2 hours from my house. He thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.
When I was a young boy , going to the movies were fun , but going to a drive in was something very special. The drive in we went to was always very crowded. Dad would get there well before the sun would go down just to make sure we got a great spot. Having to wait an hour or so was no problem for us kids . Below and slightly to the front of the massive screen ,was a great playground area. Sometimes I would play there until well after the movie had started.
Off to the left side of the playground area was a concession stand, that sold beer. This meant Dad had plenty to do himself before the movie started. By the middle of the first feature Dad was always nicely buzzed. It always seemed as if the same crowd came to these things week after week. So I always had kids I knew to play with , and Dad always had some drinking buddies to drink with. Mom was always busy making sure my brothers weren't finding creative ways to get popcorn and candy. My sisters greatest pleasure always came with dumping a soda on top of my head , right before the movie would start. Somehow she was able to do this and make it look like it was my fault. Rose would smirk at me while Dad would yell at me about having to give Rose another quarter for a root beer.
It seemed as if in the late 60's and early 70's that drive in theaters existed for the sole purpose of playing wretched horror movies that couldn't be played anywhere else. Of course this could have something to do with my Dad's taste in movies. He's always maintained that "slumber Party Massacre Part 5 " never received the honors that it so richly deserved. Whatever the case I can't ever remember going to a drive in theater and not watching a scary movie.
What I didn't know at the age of 5 was that by 1969 drive in theaters had begun their slow decline. In another 10 years most of them would be gone. By 1985 only a handful would remain. So that's why around 1969 Drive In's had begun to use gimmicks to make them more exciting places to go to. One such stunt was that during a particularly scary scene in a horror flick , to have 10 or 15 guys in scary monster masks run out and scare the audience in their cars. The best part was that in order to get the maximum effect , they wouldn't tell anyone they were going to do it.
The evening we were lucky enough to experience one of these was one I'll never forget. It was during the beginning of the second feature. Rose and I had wandered back from the playground and were trying to make John and Geno share some popcorn with us. Dad got out of the car to go get another beer. Mom made me get in the front seat so she could dry my head off with the towel that she had wisely begun to bring with her . By the time we could see Dad coming back from the concession stand the movie was getting really scary.
Dad was about two rows directly in front of us when the guys in monster masks began to pop up. The first one I saw jumped up in front of our car and began to wave his arms wildly. He flattened his face against the front window and began to make some kind of noise.
I'm not what kind of noise he was making because everyone in the car was screaming. In the backseat Rose was holding John screaming "Save me! Save me!" Popcorn was flying everywhere. Another one of these goons had appeared behind the car and was trying to look like he was going to open the back drivers side door.
That's when these two screaming masked idiots saw Dad. My Dad, in his intoxicated state, thus far hadn't noticed them. Holding his cup of beer and munching on a candy bar, Dad was about 15 feet away when they ran up to him . Waving their arms above their heads and running in an exaggerated "monster" way they approached Dad. Dad looked startled . A little surprised yell came out of him. As he moved back a bit, away from them, he dropped his beer.
As the beer hit the ground Dad hit one of the monster mask guys hard in the stomach. He fell over doubled up in pain. The second guy ran away from Dad, still waving his arms above his head. Dad looking very confused walked rapidly up to the car and got in. He looked straight ahead for a moment then announced ,"We're leaving."
As we pulled away I could see another one of the masked guys running up to his fallen friend. In the back I could hear Rose still making little whimpering noises.
I looked up at Dad in awe. I didn't know my Dad had just punched out what was likely some poor teenager in a monster mask. I thought my Dad had just saved our family by taking on two vicious monsters. By the time we were half way home Dad had recovered from his surprise to start joking about it a little.
"Well I guess they picked the wrong Drive in theater to attack."
Geno and John of course knew that they weren't real monsters. So after we got home they decided to have some more fun with me. They asked Dad if those were flesh eating monsters. Dad not wanting to look foolish said ,"Yup. Flesh eating"
After Dad had went upstairs to bed ,Geno and John made a big show of looking out the window.
"What are looking at?"I asked.
"Flesh eating monsters never give up. They're probably hiding in the woods waiting for us to go to sleep. Then they'll break in and start eating us."
Well that was a comforting thought. I stayed up until after midnight, looking out my window. Then I remembered Dad punching out one monster and chasing another away. Realizing that no monster in his right mind was going to break into Dad's house , I drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
By the next day I was telling anyone who would listen about my Dads monster fighting skills. Of course in the retelling of it , the monsters grew in size and numbers. When Dad would walk by my friends, I would ask him to tell them all about it. At the time I thought he was being humble, but now that I look back on it I can tell he was just very embarrassed about the whole thing.
It was over a year before we went back to the drive in. Dad would always ask the ticket taker,"Are you going to have anyone jump out and try to scare us? I don't really appreciate that."
Dad sometimes jokes around now, about how he hit some monster once at a drive in theater.
I wonder if somewhere some guy is telling his kids about how he was once punched out at a drive in theater by a guy who looked a lot like Saddam Hussein?