Badmovies.org Forum

Drive-in cinemas used to be the thing in South Africa until television came along in 1975 and then they started shutting one by one. Yes, you read right: television only came to SA in 1975 as it was banned as 'the devil's box' by the then government.

Aside from the drive-in here www.menlynpark.co.za (http://www.menlynpark.co.za) in Pretoria and one in Johannesburg, I think that era has been and gone for South Africa, sadly.

There are about 20 or more around the province of Ontario (I looked) - but that is quite a large area.  Two or three are near enough to me. Apparently a NEW one opened in Toronto in 2001 as part of an entertainment complex.

(OOH! The Starlite has three screens and is showing 'How to Train Your Dragon' and 'Clash of the Titans' this week!)

Here in Saskatoon we have one.  It's still in business (barely).  It's $10 a person to go watch three movies, starting from about 10 PM to about 4-5 AM.   I've been there once, and I may be taking my girlfriend and a few other friends again there soon.

They show newly released films.  I saw Get Smart, Iron Man, and 10,000 BC when I went.  So it's been a while.  All in all, it's not a bad experience.  The only problem is that there's a gas station next to it, and the light from that makes the movie a little hard to watch, especially the first film of the night.  But then again, who goes to drive-ins for the movie anyway? :wink:

The last movie that I went to see in a drive-in was Gandhi, believe it or not.  :buggedout:

down here in SE Indiana, there are two working drive ins that I know about. The one south of me doesn't have working speakers. You would use the AM radio in your car or bring a portable. The last time I was there, Another 48 Hours and Total Recall were playing.

There are a couple in my area. The one we go to closes during the winter but will be opening in a week or so. I cant wait.   :teddyr:   Its the cheapest way for my family to go to the movies. 19 bucks for 5 of us to see 2 movies, you cant beat that.  :thumbup:

The one in our town was called the Skyview drive-in.  My folks used to take me there quite often when I was a little kid.  It closed ages ago, maybe in the early '80s.  The last movie I saw at a drive-in was in Oceanside California, "Night Shift" starring Henry Winkler, in 1982.

I guess there's still one open in Eau Claire Wisconsin, which is about 70 miles from here. 

That's funny. The one we go to is called skyview drive-in.   :teddyr:

I'm too young to have ever seen a drive-in  :thumbdown:

This is now really weird: I was born in Bulawayo in the then Rhodesia and Bulawayo's drive-in was called The Skyview.  :smile:

Getting stranger: there was a drive-in in Cape Town called The Sky-Vue. :smile:

There's one near me but I've never been.  :bluesad:

According to one site there are 17 drive-ins in operation in the state of Kentucky, but I imagine that number has dropped since the last time the page was updated.

What bothers me isn't that there are no more drive-ins per se, but that there are no more drive-in movies... they just show the same stuff the cineplexes show nowadays.   :bluesad:

Just one.  :bluesad:

There is one a few towns over from us, but I have never been.

http://www.dallasmotorvu.com/

-Ed

I don't think there's a single one in the entire country.

I've never been but a place called Bengies is near me. http://www.bengies.com/Home.php (http://www.bengies.com/Home.php)

According to their website they have the largest movie theater screen in the USA!

I want to go now...

From the Bengies' Drive-In's list of house rules:


 :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:

The closest I have to me is the 99 in Newberg, about 20 miles from where I live.  There's 3 others in Oregon currently running.  The ones I used to go to back in the day are defunct by over 20 years.

I live in Massachusetts and there are at least 2 in my general area:  one is in Mendon, MA and the other is in Milford, NH.  My wife and I went to the one in Milford 2 summers ago.  It was "roll back the clocks" night at the snack bar and they had a bunch of really cheap stuff on the menu ($1.00, I think, for hot dogs, popcorn, burgers, and some other things).  I love eating all the crappy food from the snack bar.  I just wish they had drive-ins like they did in the 1970s that would show horror triple features.  There was a drive-in in Revere, MA when I was a kid and it seemed like every summer they'd run the same triple feature for a week.  They called it "3 Houses of Hell" and they'd show LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED, and THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (sometimes they'd alternate one of these with another movie like DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, but they'd always advertise it as "3 Houses of Hell.")  These days, the drive-ins around here only show recent releases.

It's really too bad that modern drive-in attendees cannot easily experience the delight of cheesy triple horror features under the stars.  I have fond childhood memories of summer nights at the drive-in watching multiple Vincent Price films or triple features built around "She".  Those were the days!

The nearest drive-in to me has a rental program - they have smaller, portable screens available for private functions.  I assume you'd be able to choose the films.  I'd love to be able to set that up to celebrate my eldest son's 21st birthday!

In that line of thought: I must mention AndyC's efforts to bring back the experience (albeit on a smaller scale).  Andy presented a 'bad movies under the stars' night successfully last summer at his local Sunflower Festival.  I believe he said he was set to do it again this year?  Wouldn't THAT be a fun Badmovies outing - with the bonus of being set in some of Ontario's prettiest cottage/vacation country.

By the way, here is a pretty good website:

http://www.drive-ins.com/

There's one near me, but they only play the big Hollywood movies.

TV banned as the Devil's Box? What kind of ideology did your government have?

There used to be one about an half hour drive away. Sadly it closed down in the mid-90s. I did catch No Holds Barred (1989) starring Hulk Hogan there. The second movie was Cyborg.

I think I've mentioned this before in another thread, there is a Drive-in for U.S. Soldiers if they are lucky enough to be stationed on a Military base in Rota, Spain. That is not exactly located at where I am now, but we used to spend our summer vacations on that base (it had a beautiful camp site) and would go each night to the Drive-in. It had a playground for kids underneath the screen, a concession stand offering all sorts of freshly made hot food (I miss their delicious pepperoni & mushroom pizza), snacks and drinks, plus a small arcade video game area and indoor seating.
Haven't been there in years but I did a google earth search recently and noticed the Drive-in is still there and apparently are still showing movies.

Yes.

We have one in Vegas.

The Circle Drive-In resides less than an hour from my current home. They still do a double bill and I love to get tons of junk from the concession stand/building. It's worth going once if they have a decent double feature, but sometimes they start the movies too soon, and the audio usually sucks because they broadcast it on an AM band, since all the speakers have been stolen or just taken down after all these years.

How far is Ennis from where I live? That's probably the nearest to me.

The latest issue of "Texas Highways" Magazine had an article about the remaining drive-in theaters in Texas.

There are 16 left in Texas. Of course, that's 5 more then there was a decade ago.

Of course, at that rate, to reach the heyday of drive-in theaters in Texas, which would be 1954, when there were 388 of them in the state, it'll take another 186 years.

We never went to the drive-in to watch the movie...  :twirl:

I remember taking my girlfriend to see Friday the 13th parts 1, 2, and 3 at the drive-in.  They had already been released on VHS and been on cable and stuff, but I thought it would be cool to see the triple feature at the drive-in anyway.  I was sort of ticked off when I suddenly noticed a chunk of about 15 minutes missing from part 1 . . . then I realized they probably needed to end the movies by a certain time to meet a town curfew or something, so they didn't show them in their entirety!  Anyway, before part 1 ended it started raining pretty hard and my girlfriend and I found better things to do than watch the movie.  Ah, the debauchery of youth . . .