The Primal Root’s Dirty Thoughts

Hey gang, Jess (Moonshine) and I just came back from Atlanta Georgia after attending The Silver Scream Spookshow’s Rock and Roll Monster Bash 2010 over at the Starlight Six Drive-In Theater. As a life long student of Drive-In culture and one of the many carrying a torch for this long standing American tradition I felt it was my duty, my destiny to be in attendance. The Drive-In tradition is one of exploitation, sleaze and mindless fun where everyone drops their hang ups and goes for it. I went for a bash, I went for spectacle, I went for some Trash Cinema Classics. I did not leave disappointed.

Moonshine and I got in a right at noon, the skies were dark and overcast which made us a little nervous about the rain but otherwise thrilled that it would be cooler out there than anticipated on that long stretch of black top in the hellish Georgia summer heat. We drove directly to the same spot we claimed at last year’s Drive-Invasion, popped up our shade, filled up our cooler with the essentials and got ready for the long, nasty, fun filled day ahead of us.

PBR: Official Cheap-O Beer of the Trash Cinema Collective

Once things got swinging we both took a trip up to the vendor area to check out what people were selling. There was an excellent selection of vintage Grindhouse posters and lobby cards, original art work, and all manner of t-shirts emblazoned with every sleazy flick you could imagine. There was some very cool stuff on display, as always, and my lovely lady Moonshine and I had a pleasurable time perusing and chatting it up with our Drive-In brethren.

Another great feature of the Monster Bash were the six ass kicking rockabilly, metal, and rock and roll bands who got this hootenanny hopping. Probably my favorite performance of the whole day happened early on as The Luchagors took the stage in full costume and gave a no holds barred, high energy, performance. Not to sell the other bands short because Grinder Nova, Apocalyptic Visions, Daikaiju, Iron Maiden Tribute, and Frankenstein all got in the spirit of things a gave their all.

The Luchagors

Grinder Nova

Also on hand were the ladies and gents of Atlanta’s own Blast-Off Burlesque who in between bands entertained us Drive-In Mutants with some sultry moves up on the main stage. Those young ladies certainly know how to captivate an audience, let me tell ya.

Who was our Master of ceremonies, you ask? None of than the man behind the Spookshow himself, Proffessor Morte and his gang! This was my first time encountering the Silver Scream Spookshow troupe but they were pretty darn funny. It could be just because I’m a dork but every singles joke they made had me in stitches. Whenever they took the stage I was reminded of the traditional Saturday morning horror movie hosts. they were cheesy, but in the absolutely best possible way. Their tone perfectly fit the show.

Professor Morte overseeing the Brain Eating Contest.

During all this fun there was something called the Model Shoot Out or something…Not exactly sure what that whole deal was but apparently it was the reason there were so many guys and gals running around with heavy duty cameras snapping pictures of all these scantly clad, good looking, women with colored hair and blood spattered across their faces all over the place. I am not complaining one little bit. Hell, as girls would pose I;d snap a few shots myself with my dinky little camera. If anything, it added to the good vibes.

VAMPIRELLA! Thwart my raging boner!

As the sun went down the rain began to come down on the Drive-In crowd for about a half an hour. Thankfully it came to a hault just as our Double Feature of 70’s nature revenge films began. First up…

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS!

The infamous killer tarantula flick from 1977 starring the ever talented William Shatner. This little beauty of a horror film is about a small country town out in the desert that’s getting ready for some kind of yearly jamboree they always put on to bring in the tourists and help out the local economy. Of course an army of about a billion migrating, flesh eating, uber toxic pissed of tarantulas arrive on the scene mere days before the event killing off livestock and the residents. William Shatner plays the local veterinarian who calls in the help of a sophisticated big city sexy blonde female veterinarian to figure it all out and poke with his cattle prod in the process. Our two scientists come to the conclusion that due to DDT and other chemicals killing off all their typical prey the local spiders have grown aggressive and are now hunting for food in packs and taking on all sorts of bigger game. The question is…how long till they turn on us? Answer: Real quick.

Kingdom of the Spiders may not make a whole lot of sense when looked at critically (Just step on the spiders, man.) but one can’t deny the terror inherent in having a face covered in hairy, bulbous, flesh eating spiders. Another element that sets this flick above many of it’s contemporaries is that it takes it’s time to establish every single character, their relationships and their emotional connections. You really get the feeling that every death is a tragedy and you feel the weight that each of these deaths has on the people closest to the victim. And this is a low budget monster movie! Truly a cut above the typical revenge of nature film.

Our second feature…

GRIZZLY! (1976)

Our second feature of the evening was the intense JAWS rip-off GRIZZLY about a nature reserve and park beset by some kind of prehistoric man eating killer grizzly bear from Hell. This sucker has come down the mountain in hopes of finding some folks eat although he seems to really enjoy just ripping their limbs off and leaving their bodies.

Grizzly was the most successful independently produced film of 1976. Watching it for the first time I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. It’s pretty bad even by Trash Cinema standards. It follows the JAWS outline with no subtlety whatsoever. In fact, I never learned the three main character’s names I just called them by which character from JAWS they were. There’s the frustrated head forest ranger who has just been relocated to this park who is our Sheriff Brody in this picture (played by, to my surprise and enjoyment, Christopher George of Pieces and Gates of Hell fame), there’s our young scientific bear specialist who likes to enter the bears natural environment to study them (Who will be our Hooper) and then there’s our bear hunting, vietnam veteran helicopter pilot to serve as our Quint. Yeah, he even has a Vietnam speech.

It’s all kind of dull outside the highly comical attack sequences where limbs fly through the air covered in red tempera paint and attached to fishing lines. This stuff is classic and I laughed myself silly. I will give kudos to the filmmakers behind Grizzly for having the balls to have their killer bear attack a small child and rip his leg off before killing the little boys broom wielding mother. That scene is the high point of the entire film. Well, next to the part where our Forest Ranger blows the living shit out of the Grizzly with a bazooka.

Moonshine at the 7th Annual Monsterbash

All and all we had sweaty, boozed up, epic time at The Rock and Roll Monster Bash this year and we are both ready for next year’s get down. Now we just gotta recoup for Starlight Six’s Drive-Invasion this September. Thanks for showing us Floridians such a good time, guys! We’ll be seeing you again in a few months. I recommend you guys reading this plan on attending next year’s Monster Bash. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

The Primal Root at the old stomping ground of Trash Cinema.

As my hero Joe Bob Briggs always says, “The Drive-In Will Never Die!”

Stay Trashy,
-The Primal Root