Sub Rosa Drive-In Theater

If you missedFriday night’s screening of They Live, you really missed out. We had our best turn out yet on the best night of the series. It was a beautiful night to watch a movie outdoors and everyone else seemed to think so, too, since the Simply Green lot was packed. Larry and I also seem to have all the technical details nailed down so there was no bad picture, no bad audio, no power loss, nothing. We even had people driving by the lot stop to ask what we were up to, generating even more interest. It was a very encouraging show.

And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes. Nun Of That is a real movie. I’m a big fan of the film’s director, Richard Griffin. Other movies of his that I’ve seen are uniformly great. Here’s a rundown of all the trailers we ran.

Starcrash – A turkey of proportions so epic, it could have only come from the Italian exploitation machine. It’s supposed to ape Star Wars. Has David Hasselhoff in a substantial role.

The Deadly Spawn – Sold in some markets as Return of the Aliens, The Deadly Spawn is a fun alien carnage movie from the early 80’s made for practically nothing, featuring a fantastic alien monster model that is mostly teeth chasing kids around their attic and basement.

Nun of That – As mentioned above, it’s real. It’s by Providence, Rhode Island filmmaker, Richard Griffin, and was spawned from a mock trailer he made for the ‘08 48 Hour Fillm project.

Big Trouble In Little China – Does this one even need an introduction? A terrific flop upon release in 1986, it went on to become one of John Carpenter’s classics. Kurt Russel must battle an ancient chinese evil in San Francisco. Originally planned as a western while Carpenter was attached to The Golden Child.

Hell Comes To Frogtown – Rowdy Roddy Piper plays Sam Hell, one of the last fertile men on earth. The government recruits him to save a group of fertile women, captured by mutant frogs, so that he may reproduce with them. I wish I were making that up.

So there you go, the anatomy of a good time. Join us this Friday, the 14th, for our first double feature, the cult classic documentary, Heavy Metal Parking Lot and the goofy dog of a horror movie, Black Roses.

Hey, gang. We had a great turn out tonight! Around 8:30, the convoy of Sub Rosa supporters, ready for a night of commie smashing action rolled in and a little after 9, we kicked off the show. Everything was going alright until the dramatic turn in the second act as the Wolverines start to fight back. Then I went out to move the generator and all hell broke loose.

I assure you, folks, we’ll get to watch an entire movie at the next show.

We’re clearly still working the bugs out of the process. The trailer reel went on a little too long and the proximity of the generator to the FM transmitter was to blame for that awful hum under the audio. The fact that it was foggy accounted for the picture being obscured by nearby lights. Had there been no moisture in the air to reflect off of, the picture would have been great. Had I not knocked the cable out of the generator, the whole system wouldn’t have come down. The problem, for those of you wondering, is that the DVD player is an antiquated cheap-o with no buttons other than play, stop and eject on the face of the machine. The remote was long gone. Starting over would have meant watching the movie from beginning to end. We were about to break for an intermission while Cheyenne, who lives right nearby, ran home to get a backup player.

That’s when the cops showed up. So you choose. It was either my own ineptitude or the inevitability of the po-po dropping by that closed us down. Just as the movie was getting good. Since we won’t be going back there, I can now tell you all where we were: behind the Bed, Bath and Beyond building (formerly Service Merchandise) on Central Avenue in Dover. I don’t know who called the cops but it could have been any of the cars that drove through while we were watching the movie. Regardless, Rollinsford’s finest couldn’t have been cooler about it. We were trespassing, they asked us nicely to leave. You all beat it in an orderly fashion. Thanks for your cooperation.

I hope no one feels let down. We were having a grand old time and the next show is still on in two weeks. We have a couple of spots that are interested in actually hosting us so the police won’t be an issue next time. We also pulled down enough in donations to afford They Live in a month. Thank you guys so, so much. We’ll see you at the next show in two weeks. The Warriors. A very special, very rare version of The Warriors.

Can you dig it?

I’d been sweating this show all day. There were so many uncertainties. Would the cops come and tell us to break it up? Would the cops come and take me to jail? Was Christian Slater worthy of jail time? Would the battery last the entire show? Would anyone even come? It would turn out that all but one of those fears would prove to be nothing but anxiety.

Changing the venue at the last minute wasn’t a good idea, but Larry took a minute to run over to the other location to see if anyone had missed the mail and it looked like any of you who might have come either beat it when you saw no one around or got the email in time to know where to go instead. Sorry if you didn’t get it in time. I sincerely apologize, but we would have most certainly been broken up by the po-po and the new location turned out to be an even better spot. Honestly, we couldn’t have picked a better place to screen.

We had a great turn out for our first show and everyone seemed to have a great time. A writer and photographer from Foster’s showed up and interviewed Larry and I and took some photos.

I just wish that the battery hadn’t died.

I made an educated guess about its life span given the power demand we were putting on it and my estimation turned out to be a gross inaccuracy. In short, my guess that the battery and inverter, given the power load, would last 6 hours was off by about 5 hours. We were out of business by the halfway point in the movie. A true bummer. I apologize for that folks. I swear that we’ll have the power situation worked out for this Friday’s screening of Red Dawn. Tell your friends