Drive-In Delirium: The Final Conflict is the seventh and purportedly final installment in the long-running series of trailer collections from Umbrella Entertainment. Will it really be the last one? I can’t say. What I can say is that there have been many franchises over the years that have had a “Final” entry, and they usually manage to eke out a couple more sequels after the fact. I can’t imagine why Drive-In Delirium would be all that different.
You’ll be taken a little aback early on as there are a healthy selection of trailers for summer blockbusters (such as Star Wars, Superman 2, and Raiders of the Lost Ark), which isn’t exactly the first thing you think of when it comes to “drive-in” fare (although they often played drive-ins in their second run). It doesn’t take long for things to get back on track with an assortment of When Animals Attack movies (like Bug, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Squirm), ‘70s horror (Axe, Race with the Devil, and Burnt Offerings), ‘80s classics (Re-Animator, Street Trash, and The Hitcher), giallo thrillers (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Who Saw Her Die?, and All the Colors of the Dark), Italian horror (Macabre, A Blade in the Dark, and Beyond the Door 3), and more ‘70s stuff (like And Soon the Darkness, Fright, and From Beyond the Grave). Things wrap up with a collection of ads for big-budget thrillers like Marathon Man, The Deep, and The China Syndrome, which, like the blockbuster trailers, feel a little out of place in this kind of compilation.
The second half kicks off with a funny pre-movie intro for United Artists Theaters starring Chevy Chase, some old concession stand ads, and even a commercial for Star Trek: The Motion Picture action figures. Unfortunately, the trailers in this half of the collection are just as uneven, and once again, many of the films featured feel way too “respectable” for a drive-in. There are trailers for disaster movies (Juggernaut, The Towering Inferno, and Airport ‘77), ‘60s crime flicks (Point Blank, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Midas Run), and the James Bond series (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, and A View to a Kill). Whenever it does get into a groove of Blaxploitation trailers (Shaft in Africa, Cleopatra Jones, and Friday Foster) or car chase classics (Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, White Line Fever, and Smokey and the Bandit), it inevitably winds up veering back into wholesome entertainment again. I mean, I can’t give this installment any less than *** just because of the enormous goodwill the series has built up over the years. I know a seven-hour trailer compilation has got to contain SOME filler, but something is seriously wrong when they are sticking a trailer for The Muppet Movie in a so-called “drive-in” compilation.
Maybe it is time for the franchise to quit while it’s ahead.
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