This is just a fun sort of Australian knockoff of Mad Max meets Burning Man — and don't get me wrong, that description is meant to entice you, not deter you!The film is set in the future but still with that awesome 80's aesthetic — neon, spiked hair, and ripped fishnets every-freaking-where. The economy has collapsed, crime is rampant, and cars are what everyone's after. The government has created a chain of drive-in movie theaters that are to serve as a sort of concentration camp for the young, reckless youth of society — surrounded by tall, electrified fences and only accessible by security roads (or "s-roads") that under no circumstances allow walking. Crabs (Ned Manning) and his girlfriend, Carmen (Natalie McCurry) wind up there on a date night and soon realize they aren't leaving any time soon.The whole atmosphere of the movie is amazing. It's like an hour and a half of pure eye candy. It's got everything you'd want or need in a post-apocalyptic 80's film — teased hair, unexplained fog, graffiti on every surface, random fires burning for no apparent reason. Great music, too. And Manning is sort of David Duchovny-esque with an Australian accent (which is totally okay with me).Admittedly, while the plot is a cool one, it kind of fizzles in the middle chunk of the movie. Like Crabs just keeps expressing how he's just going to fix his brother's car and they'll be outta there, and Carmen keeps being like "meh" about it… and then nothing happens. Rinse and repeat. It's like they had this awesome idea but somewhere in the middle they were like, errr, what do we do with this now? How do we fill this time?Then, as if in an effort to answer that question, a big bus full of Asian prisoners arrive, and suddenly the group takes this super racist turn, with Crabs seemingly being the only one who is like, dude, what are y'all so angry about? "They're not the enemy — they're prisoners, just like us."But then we get to Crabs really ramping up for his escape, which is pretty exciting. All of the other prisoners are happy to exist as they are — the whole movie really is a sad "allegory for the junk values of the eighties, which our hero sees as a prison", as director Brian Trenchard-Smith refers to it. The others, including Carmen, don't believe the world has anything to offer them. At the drive-in they are sort of on their own misfit island… they're among people who feel the same as they do, and they aren't judged or looked down on. But Crabs has a desire to make his life more meaningful. His escape is a pretty amazing climax to the movie — literally flying off of a ramp through the drive-in sign. It's a pretty killer ending, and the most expensive stunt of the whole movie, costing them around $75,000 (insane considering the movie only grossed $68,000).Not quite a masterpiece by any means, but definitely a fun adventure.

This oz flick which took over two years to hit video, is hardly worth the wait. In the not too distant future, which by the hardly changed backdrop, unconvincing, really, give two or three years ahead, unemployment is really taken a slump. Dole bludgers, what have you, have made the dreaded mistake of going to the outdoor flicks one too many times, where scores of going nowhere youth, have become prisoner of the drive in, it's fences electrified. In drives our hero Crabsee, (Manning) and his hot date Carmen (McCurry) who tries to defy the odds, and the other youth who've much accepted their fate, for rotting away in this dive of takeaway of crummy movies, courtesy of some of the director's other flicks. Manning is hell bent on getting out, that's his objective, the plot of the whole flick, while even his girlfriend, has accepted her situation. Only Crabsee can't, the antagonist being the owner (a wonderful Peter Whitford, wasted in this trashy junk as is the middle aged woman running the refreshment stand) who he and his outside forces try and hinder his efforts, which Manning is a guy you don't want to get pi..ed, another instance when he realizes his predicament, as he blows off some steam to Whitford, really good in the role, who slyly tries to offer him a partnership. The movie too, takes a stand on race, as when truckloads of Asians enter the dirty gates of this establishment, Crabsee is the only one, sticking by em'. Oh, I didn't mention, Crabsee can fight too, his little fracas with another of the trapped being Wilbur Wide, his uninspiring acting performance, as one can expect. Still this insipid, if original movie with it's weak plot is worth a view, as McCurry's goodies when pashing Crabsee in the back of the panel van. This movie just won't appeal to all tastes. Too imagining the reality of the movie, if you were those unfortunate youth, is enough to bring anyone down, but remember it's just a movie and not a reall good one.

Futuristic setting when there have been major financial collapses, destabilising governments and creating high levels of unemployment. Sound familiar? Based upon a story by Peter Carey this has some seriousness and deals with the nation's difficulty in accepting non-white immigrants but basically this is just one big car chasing, fist fighting, race of a movie. With only a few bare tit shots to slow up the real action, this one doesn't stop till the stunt men presumably died. Ned Manning is for me a little under whelming in the lead role, but he's effective enough. The drive-in that serves for the post apocalyptic like setting for most of the film is very well established and there are some fantastic shots of punk like posers amidst a ruin of busted cars and sunbathers.

Brian Trenchard-Smith is probably not a house-hold name even for B-movie fans, however, this Australian director has created among the wackiest and most original movies ever. While his work may not be of high quality (his two "Leprechaun" films are a good example of this), they are always creative as his wild imagination seems to be set loose every time he sits at the director's chair. "Dead-End Drive In", probably his best film, is a perfect example of this: writer Peter Carey constructs a very intelligent tale set in an apocalyptic wasteland, and Trenchard-Smith takes fully advantage of the plot to construct one of the best Australian b-movies. A cult-classic.After the world's economy collapsed, Australia was turned into a wasteland where the unemployed youth uses the street as a battlefield and the law is forgotten. To fight this, the Government uses a Drive-In to lock them and keep them controlled using fast food and movies. A young man named Crabs (Ned Manning) is trapped in this way, but instead of becoming a conformist member of the nihilistic youth, he decides to fight back and escape no matter the cost.Hidden under this sci-fi/horror tale of an apocalyptic society is a very well-written plot with social commentary included. "Dead-End Drive In" is a great story against the conformism. Crabs is trapped in an apparent paradise where he can get all the fast food he wants and do nothing but live each day, but instead he chooses to fight back and try to escape from the Drive-In and to return to his family. He knows this "paradise" is false, and that the only thing worth fighting for is real freedom.Stretching the budget to the max, Trenchard-Smith manages to create very well done scenes with the very few resources he has. He makes a great use of his locations and the film is packed with high-octane action and a healthy dose of humor. Still, the film remains focused on its message and Carey makes a portrait of present-day society, as racist, conformist and violent as the youth depicted in the film. It is not a horror movie in the sense of being scary, but it is haunting in the sense that even when it is a fictitious scenery, it is not hard to believe that humanity will behave the way the conformist teenager do in the film.Ned Manning is very good as Crabs, as he has the looks of a common young man trapped unfairly in a living tomb. His character is very likable and his performance makes the most of it. Natalie McCurry, playing Crab's beautiful girlfriend Carmen is also an important character, as she begins to lose hope in Crabs' idea and starts to behave just as the rest of the cattle. The rest of the cast is very good, but really nothing memorable.The films's biggest flaw is the sad fact that the film looks terribly dated. The film has that distinct 80s feeling and look and it can't come up as "futurist" anymore. Anyways, that is not really a serious flaw as it adds up to the charm the film has. The movie still manages to be quite entertaining and some effects (like the use of explosives) still look great after 20 years."Dead-End Drive In" is a very interesting sci-fi movie from Australia that it's definitely worth a rent. With its 80s feeling, high-speed action and social commentary it still delivers the goods. This film is more than a cheap "Mad Max" rip-off, it is a terrific (and hopefully not prophetical) vision of the future. 7/10