Drive Thru (2007)

the audience applauded

A different way of telling a story

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

As he friends are being gruesomely murdered, a teen learns they're being targeted by a local fast-food clown mascot as revenge against a prank done by their parents and must stop the rampage.Overall this wasn't all that bad of a slasher effort. Like most efforts in the genre, what really works nicely here for this one is the rather enjoyable stalking and slashing featured throughout here, and there's some really enjoyable ones. The opening attack in the restaurant kitchen is quite fun for the series of enjoyable tactics that take place in the cramped location, a rather graphic encounter in the main restaurants' waiting room and a rather tense chase along through the abandoned school hallways which comes off a great highlight stalking sequence with plenty of great chasing, hiding and leading into the different rooms trying to escape. These lead into the biggest scene here in the finale at the house which goes into several rather tense confrontations in the basement as well as the kitchen chase with all the different defense tactics providing for a decent and enjoyable series of scenes before showcasing the rather chilling birthday party scene that really ends this on a fine note with the action on display. There's also a pretty decent backstory here for this one that culminates in a classic slasher story of a prank-gone-wrong coming back to haunt the next generation and the scene to showcase that is a rather enjoyable sequence that plays to genre convictions quite well, as does the graphic kills and creepy clown mask for the killer. There's a few small problems here, starting with the continuous amount of clichés in here. The main storyline here, about the killer returning to seek vengeance on a younger generation is itself quite a common motif used for many slashers, and beyond tying it to a fast-food mascot to utilize the clown mask there's not much original about most of the actions here. The group of friends are all typical clichés as well, and many of the supporting characters from the one who has a lot more knowledge than he lets on or the bumbling cop who's always wrong against his always-right partner are others in here. The other big flaw here is a rather confusing sequence that should've been a highlight is instead a confusing, jumbled mess of confusing editing and blurred motion as the attack in the funhouse is so haphazardly cut and edited that it really loses the impact of the great kill and bloodshed it could've displayed. The killer's antics may wear thin about cracking a joke after each kill, but these are the biggest issues here.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a brief sex scene and drug use.

Wow I never thought for once in my life on God's green Earth, I have ever run into a horror movie about a Drive Thru Restaurant. I think I figure out the real inspiration for this mess of a film. The writers got some weed, ate some McDonalds, watched 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street and then played some Twisted Metal video games and said "wow, that Sweet Tooth character guy is scary, let's make a movie about it". It's B slasher flick about a make believe fast food icon Horny the Clown killing people. Really? What kind of parent do you have to be to be willing to take your child to a restaurant with a clown mascot named Horney? I mean really. I want to know why the owner went with that name and why he named his restaurant Hellaburger? Yeah like I would want to take my children to a restaurant with that name and a clown mascot named Horney. I don't think so. The parody name is so bad. I know this is not a serious horror movie and it's not meant to be a serious horror movie, but still the movie plays serious in certain scenes. I loved how it turned into Lifetime Movie mode when the mother was telling the "sad" story about Horney. It's like they didn't know if they wanted to be scary, melodramatic or funny. Couldn't they be a little bit cleverer with this plot? If they wanted melodramatic, couldn't they just stop the parodying and take the movie serious. If you want to make humor, couldn't they had smarter humor rather lowering itself to this awful level? Just because it's satire, doesn't mean it's smart. This film is pretty stupid. It blows my mind that while Ronald McDonald is naturally creepy, a movie actually trying to make a clown scary comes off as pathetic at most, mildly annoying. It's doesn't scare me. I gotta say, this movie isn't impressive, but this is the best opening to any horror movie ever! I know the first deaths in a horror movie are meant to show how scary and dangerous the killer is, but you have no idea how much I hate gangsta people and how annoying these guys were from the moment we saw them on film. This movie is possibly one of the biggest instances in which I was absolutely rooting for the bad guy. Seriously, who actually wanted any of those victims to live? Even their parents were jerks. At least most of them die, I'll give the movie that. I dislike the movie for one of the main characters not dying off. It's the one who acts like she's better than the other upper class teens because she and her friends are all hip and now. You probably know who I'm talking about. Anyways, Horny are killing teenagers left and right because they were the children of the parents that cause his murder. If I remember correctly, the thing that caused Horny's death was a cruel prank gone bad by Leighton Meester's character's Mackenzie Carpenter's mother and her friends that accidentally lighted his party on fire and he died in the fire. The clown reminds me of the stupid logo for that stupid rap group Insane Clown Posse running another hacking off people with that hatchet. For all the juggalos and juggalettes, and twiztid's fan, you're music sounds pretty crappy. Talking about music. I have to say 'Inside the black' was interesting and best part of the film. Leighton Meester does sing in the movie. Her voice is very impressed, but I don't think it was satisfying. The metal music blazing by Ralph Rieckermann doesn't make it any more scary; it's doesn't sound heavy at all, it just sounds like noise that distract you from watching what is happening on screen. It was Intrusive metal music that is annoying like Doctor Rockso announcing he does cocaine in the TV Show Metalocalypse. Horny the Clown's has his stupid one liners, too. All of them are pretty bad puns. I do like the 1980's Shining reference. The kills are just cheap graphic gore. There is a laughable scene with a guy getting his face stuck in the deep fryer. The whole school chase with the microwave was enough to throw me in a coma from it's sheer stupidity and bad editing. You would have thought if somebody head blew up, you wouldn't see their head later on the film. One of the worst things about the film is why was Horney even giving clues to who he was going to kill next. Why did Mackenzie gets cryptic messages about the next victim, on her Ouija board, 8 ball, Etch-a-Sketch etc. All these items have nothing to do with the restaurant theme! The movie doesn't even bother explaining the whole unexplained thing with Horny possessing supernatural/demonic powers! How was he supposed to know that a year 2000's teenager MacKenzie would use those 1970's novelty items? That seem very unlikely MacKenzie would even know such things. The movie even had political subtext that went nowhere. One good thing about the film is the 2004's 'Super Size me' Director, Morgan Spurlock having a cameo. His scene was just really lame anyway mildly flirting with a girl then telling the stoners to stop being bad. Anyways, this straight-to-DVD movie isn't worth a rent and no way worth buying. Just borrow it from a friend if you really want to watch this film. I warn you, it's stupider than 1988's Killer Klowns from outer space and that's no joke.

Some kids go to a drive thru and get abuse and insults from the speaker. Once they venture inside they are killed by some guy in a punk clown suit. The burger joint is clown-themed for some reason.Later we meet the lovely Mackenzie and her dumb friends as they play the Ouija board. And little by little friends and acquaintances of her start dying. The cops investigating are one tough chick of course and one fat dumb guy, of course. They don't know what's going on. Until Mackenzie's mom tells her of something she and her friend did to the son of the burger joint owner.As much as I love 80s slashers, Drive Thru just doesn't cut it. It's gory, it has the lovely Leighton Meester and Melora Hardin, who are the only two who can act. The rest of the cast gives pretty embarrassing performances. But the direction and especially the editing are poor. Music also is a bit annoying, as much as I like metal. This type of story has been told many times so it's nothing particularly new and actually the explanation of everything comes a bit out of nowhere. The whole clown-motif is getting tired and pointless. Had the directors taken a serious approach instead of the goofy comedy approach and added some nudity, Drive Thru could have been a decent horror movie.

Now this one really was more fun than I expected. Pretty ridiculous acting from those ghetto-wannabe-white-boyz, so the opening scenes had me fearing the worst. But I was so glad to see they had it coming . This film worked, because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Nice, fast-paced and totally unoriginal plot that is kind of a throwback to many 80's slashers (like HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and SLAUGHTER HIGH and a zillion others) mixed with a modern-day one-liner spewing villain. Fun gore-effects too, every now and then. Worth a watch, if you like slashers. And if you can't get with it, then my guess is you're taking things a tad bit too serious with this one.