Would you like fries with that Slasher-crap?

Coventry

From start to finish, this is utterly irritating and infantile slasher-fodder of the type that makes you want to poke out your own eyeballs with a rusty spoon. This is the type of junk you've seen six dozen of times before already, and every single one of them was better and less insulting to your intellect. The plot is derivative of approximately fifteen other early 80's slasher films, the soundtrack is nefarious (for the last time: heavy-metal and suspense rarely mix!), the characters are insupportable stereotypes and the maniacal killer (yet another evil clown) is the complete opposite of menacing, with his lame one-liners and overly flamboyant outfit. The film opens with a couple of white trash guys who desperately wish to be black thugs and their arrogant behavior and incomprehensible slang pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film. Seriously, are American teenagers really this stupid nowadays? Luckily they quickly get massacred by Horny the Clown, the Ronald McDonald of fast food restaurant "Hella Burger" located in Orange County. The serial killer-clown continues his murder spree in the local high school, but his teenage victims – and particularly their parents – appear to have something in common, namely a dark secret about a prank that horribly ran out of control and killed a nerdy kid on his 18th birthday party. The concept is as old as the slasher-film itself, yet the writers pretentiously act as if they re-invent the genre and particularly the comical aspects miserably fail their effect. There's zero suspense, or what else did you expect, and the screenplay stupidly enough often hints at supernatural powers even though there's no logical explanation for this. The film tries to be intelligent, and distract you from all the plot-holes and improbabilities, through its main character Mackenzie Carpenter. She's a rebellious, opinionated and politically engaged teenager and, granted, Leighton Meester's presence and cute on screen charisma is unquestionably the movie's main strongpoint. Yet, she also still makes a couple of stupid decisions and all of her friends, including her horny boyfriend, are more than dim-witted enough to compensate for her cleverness. The gore is pretty decent, I have to admit, but overall "Drive Thru" is a totally insignificant movie.

score 2/10

Coventry 16 March 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1840962/