Drive-Thru is a horror film that feels like a broken-down mess of what was originally shaping out to be a great film, until bad editing decisions and long, drawn-out scenes of phony character interest corrupted the final product. The film takes place in a sleepy, Conservative town (one of those films that annoyingly tries to slam and critique one political party over the other for no good reason), which includes a Hella Burger restaurant, a fast-food chain represented by a clown named Horny. The town becomes rocked when Horny the clown comes to life, wielding a meat cleaver and killing several twentysomethings as revenge over something that happened many years ago. Both Mackenzie and her boyfriend Fisher (Leighton Meester and Nicholas D'Agosto, who both went on to do films far more interesting than this one) decide to try and stop the vicious murderer as he savagely maims and kills his victims, cleverly avoiding detectives as well.
Undoubtedly the most entertaining soul in this film, even more-so than Horny, is Detective Dwayne Crockers (Larry Joe Campbell), a husky, bumbling detective who is the butt of almost every joke he's involved with. He finds ways to make his goofy self likable in the strangest situations, and even with limited screen time, manages to impress more than the twentysomethings he is cast with simply because his character is actually given the redeeming merit of humor. The remainder of the characters are depressingly archetypal versions of their stereotypes, prompting little in the way of humor or genuine emotion outside of maddening tedium on the audience's behalf.
Before I move forward, let's talk about Horny, who is such a shortchanged villain it's almost depressing. One look at the character and he sends shockwaves of fear to your soul, boasting a permanently frightening face and a voice with a shivering raspy quality, as he speaks through a drive-thru microphone. For an inherently frightening killer, editor Daniel R. Padgett effectively robs him of any sort of suspense and personality because of the way he is constantly disrespected on screen. Whenever Horny appears on screen, loud, indistinguishable heavy metal music blasts out of the speakers combined with the uneasy effect of editing sped up to distracting speeds. The editing goes through a strange boost of energy during these scenes, as if some sort of requirement was struck for how long gruesomeness can appear on screen.
With this brazen style of editing, Drive-Thru's suspense feels thrown away for a cheap and bogus way of getting right to the good stuff. With that, we spend a lot of time on undeveloped - and mostly uninteresting - characters, reciting mediocre dialog that methodically tries to piece together who Horny the Clown is and why he is doing what he's doing. These scenes, interjected in the middle of strangely-edited mayhem, throws off the pace of the film and often slows it to a crawl, with lots of dead-time being encountered between the action of the film. For a film clearly wanting to adhere to cheesy slasher principles, it's as if the film was trying to make a smarter, more investing crime story but, in turn, effectively turned out more boring and lackluster than even some of the worst slasher films of the 1980's. Single out a humorous cameo by Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock and a moderately enjoyable killer and there's little else to praise about Drive-Thru, a film that could've been at least bumped up to tolerable quality had the editing and pacing been taken into consideration.
Starring: Leighton Meester, Nicholas D'Agosto, Lola Glaudini, Larry Joe Campbell, Melora Hardin, Paul Ganus, and Morgan Spurlock. Directed by: Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn.
Undoubtedly the most entertaining soul in this film, even more-so than Horny, is Detective Dwayne Crockers (Larry Joe Campbell), a husky, bumbling detective who is the butt of almost every joke he's involved with. He finds ways to make his goofy self likable in the strangest situations, and even with limited screen time, manages to impress more than the twentysomethings he is cast with simply because his character is actually given the redeeming merit of humor. The remainder of the characters are depressingly archetypal versions of their stereotypes, prompting little in the way of humor or genuine emotion outside of maddening tedium on the audience's behalf.
Before I move forward, let's talk about Horny, who is such a shortchanged villain it's almost depressing. One look at the character and he sends shockwaves of fear to your soul, boasting a permanently frightening face and a voice with a shivering raspy quality, as he speaks through a drive-thru microphone. For an inherently frightening killer, editor Daniel R. Padgett effectively robs him of any sort of suspense and personality because of the way he is constantly disrespected on screen. Whenever Horny appears on screen, loud, indistinguishable heavy metal music blasts out of the speakers combined with the uneasy effect of editing sped up to distracting speeds. The editing goes through a strange boost of energy during these scenes, as if some sort of requirement was struck for how long gruesomeness can appear on screen.
With this brazen style of editing, Drive-Thru's suspense feels thrown away for a cheap and bogus way of getting right to the good stuff. With that, we spend a lot of time on undeveloped - and mostly uninteresting - characters, reciting mediocre dialog that methodically tries to piece together who Horny the Clown is and why he is doing what he's doing. These scenes, interjected in the middle of strangely-edited mayhem, throws off the pace of the film and often slows it to a crawl, with lots of dead-time being encountered between the action of the film. For a film clearly wanting to adhere to cheesy slasher principles, it's as if the film was trying to make a smarter, more investing crime story but, in turn, effectively turned out more boring and lackluster than even some of the worst slasher films of the 1980's. Single out a humorous cameo by Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock and a moderately enjoyable killer and there's little else to praise about Drive-Thru, a film that could've been at least bumped up to tolerable quality had the editing and pacing been taken into consideration.
Starring: Leighton Meester, Nicholas D'Agosto, Lola Glaudini, Larry Joe Campbell, Melora Hardin, Paul Ganus, and Morgan Spurlock. Directed by: Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn.