Actually, the full title of this amazing short novel is The Drive-In, A "B" Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas. No matter what it's called, the important thing to remember is that it was written by a native Texan named Joe R. Lansdale, and anything with this guy's name on the cover is most definitely worth you time. When it comes to creating a supremely strange tale equal parts white-hot nightmare and pitch-black comedy, this is one writer who demands greater acclaim. After many years of producing brilliant short stories, he's at last set out to make a name for himself as a novelist.
The Drive-In is about the events that befall a carload of teenagers attending the All-Night Horror Show at the Orbit, the world's largest drive-in theater. The real fun begins when a comet-or maybe a spacehip-descends over the area, and suddenly the entire complex is completely cut off from the rest of society. Anyone who tries to leave the premises runs into a thick black fog from which there is obviously no return. That's just the first reel. Lansdale has deliberatley composed the novel like a cheap B movie, as well. The action never lets up.
These young lads now try to survive in a world primarily composed of six giant screens showing six different splatter movies continuously. In the meantime, the people around them quickly descend into barbaric madness as the food supply runs out and there's nothing left to eat but each other. To make matters worse, two of the lead teenagers are transmogrified into a single, hideous mutation which dubs itself the Popcorn King. Not only does it regularly vomit forth the only remaining food supply, it injoys leading the remaining patrons into further orgies of death and destruction.
Lansdale is masterful at describing intense situations of human deprevity and violence. But what separates him from being just a describer of slice'n'dice is the fact that he has style,a marvelous, instantly recognizable style which embodies the best of the oldtime storytellers, tales told so outrageously that you gladly go along for the ride.
Lansdale is one of the best kept secrets in the field. For example, even the cover of The Drive-In seems like some dumb science fiction plot; there's nothing to indicate that this book has as many wild ideas and unique characters as anything Barker or King can produce. But it does. Watch out, because there's more than enough blood and popcorn to go around.