Drive Thru (Hellaburger)

When I was a kid (elementary school and junior high years) certain words or phrases were popular among my peers: dude, dudical (yes, dudical), rad, radical, “dude, that is so brutal (a synonym for rad)”, face (as in you just got totally shown up), moted (see face), etc. I grew up in northern California, so some of these may be regional examples. One of our favorite words was hella, a contraction of “hell of” or a reduction of hellacious or a substitution for the imprecatory modifier fuckin’ or something. I don’t know; I’m no linguist. We’d say things like, “that was hella cool.” Replace cool with rad or awesome or brutal and you get a feel for our lexicon. The reason I bring this up is that I just watched a movie called Drive Thru that uses the word hella. Brutal, dude.

First off, I didn’t rent this movie. I experienced this genius piece of cinema free of cost. Well, actually it’s not free; it’s part of my exorbitant monthly cable bill. I didn’t have to pay extra for it, though. It can be found, if you’re a Comcast subscriber, on FEARnet On Demand. I had never heard of this movie, so I decided to give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s pretty competent filmmaking for the DTV horror genre. I made it through the entire movie and enjoyed it in the process. That’s more than can be said for my last attempt at a DTV horror film, Unholy. I only made it a half hour into that chingado pedazo de mierda.

Drive Thru is written and directed by Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn. I couldn’t find much about these guys on imdb. Shane has an earlier directing credit for a movie called Redneck. This appears to be Brendan Cowles writing and directing debut. Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights. The premise of the movie is simple; a sadistic killer wearing a clown costume stalks and kills a bunch of teenagers. The identity and motive of the killer are a mystery. This is a by the numbers slasher flick (I don’t mind conventions—I find comfort in them, like a Law and Order episode) that follows the Friday the 13th formula pretty closely. What sets this movie apart from the hundreds of other teen slasher films is its sense of humor. The killer is the mascot of a fast food chain called Hellaburger. He wears a clown/satan mask and a black nylon jumpsuit with flames. He wields a wicked looking axe. He goes by the name Horny. When he kills, the camera speeds up and the action gets frenetic. Sweet heavy metal music accompanies his unfettered rage. He often delivers cheesy one-liners while splitting skulls or severing torsos. It’s totally not scary…but it’s awesome. Watch out for the french fry cooker.

The teen victims that Horny stalks are typical of this kind of movie; you’ve got stoners and jocks and sluts and the nice boyfriend and his chaste girlfriend (the hero girl). The other necessary characters are here as well: the concerned parents, the creepy janitor, the bungling detectives. Each character is well-acted. Most of the actors in this film come from TV. The hero girl (Mackenzie Carpenter) is played by Leighton Meester from the short-lived series, Surface. [She also played a character named Heather Crowley in an episode of the amazing CSI: Miami. Heather Crowley is my cousin’s name. Crowley is my last name. Therefore, I feel tangentially related to Leighton Meester. That’s hella rad.] Her boyfriend (Fisher Kent) is played by Nicholas D’Agostino of Heroes. One of the detectives (Crockers) is some guy (Larry Joe Campbell) from the sitcom According to Jim and the other detective (Brenda Chase) is some lady (Lola Glaudini) from Criminal Minds, NYPD Blue, and a few episodes of The Sopranos. Campbell is pretty damn funny in this; no, I’m not kidding. Glaudini plays off of him well. Morgan Spurlock, that dude who made Super Size Me, has a nice cameo as a manager at Hellaburger. (I apologize for all the parentheses in the above paragraph; I hope I didn’t confuse you too much. I’ll try to use them less in the future (maybe not)).

The best thing about Drive Thru is the writing. The dialogue is great, which is extremely rare in this kind of movie. I usually end up groaning at the poorly written and poorly delivered lines of most DTV horror films. Most of the stuff I laugh at wasn’t intended to be funny. This movie is different. It’s meant to be funny and it actually is. The concept of the Hellaburger restaurant is great. They have awesome names for all the food items and combos on the menu. The fake commercials and slogans work really well: “Hellaburger is hella good.” This is the first time I’ve heard “hella” used in a movie (that I can think of). It caught me off guard. I love it. The opening scene of the movie is priceless. It involves some white wannabe gangsters at the Hellaburger drive thru. At least watch that part. Pretty much every scene that involves Detective Crockers is great, especially his conversation with the Hellaburger owner. I also really enjoyed the flashback scene with Chuck Taylor and the scene where the teens get yelled at for playing in the ball pit.

Things I would have liked to see:
--more gore (there’s a lot, but they could have gone crazy with it)
--boobs (c’mon guys, this is low budget horror…boobs are a requirement)
--the title should have been Hellaburger instead of the generic Drive Thru

Note: This film can be watched as a social commentary on the health risks posed by fast food. It would probably be fun to watch this movie while stoned. Also, don’t light people on fire. Also, axes and heavy metal music belong together like franks and beans. Also, the Japanese title for this movie, Death Burger, is ace.