When I was a teen in the eighties, our town had a drive-in theater. We did the usual expected things like smuggling friends in the trunk of the car and fooling around in the back seat. The only movie I recall watching there was I Spit On Your Grave, about a girl taking revenge on the guys who raped her. The most memorable part was when she cut a guy’s dick off and locked him in the bathroom while he bled to death.
My best friends mother would take us to a local drive in every few weeks. There were three features, the later you could stay up the more Rated R it got.
Dead Calm (1989) left a mark on my 10 year old psyche. I’ve been meaning to watch it again to see if it holds up.
There was a drive-in near me growing up, the Dependable Drive-in, that showed adult movies in the 80’s. Kids in high-school used to talk about it, some went there, but I never did. I guess carding at a drive-in at night isn’t much of a thing. It was kind of notorious.
I’m in my late 50’s. Here are the movies I remember from drive-ins, in roughly chronological order:
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101 Dalmatians
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Willard (maybe not appropriate for me at the time)
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White Lightning - A Burt Reynolds movie
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The Gumball Rally
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Some racing movie. Either it was Paul Newman’s, “Winning” or Steve McQueen’s, “La Mans.” Pretty sure it was the latter.
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Monkey Shines/American Gothic double-feature.
And my last movies: An Oscar (with Stallone)/What About Bob? double-feature. It was one of those drive-ins that didn’t have speakers, and we were in a car with a bad radio. We watched both movies with my walkman tuned to the movie sound station, with one earphone apiece. It worked out well, though, as it facilitated closeness with my would-be, soon-to-be girlfriend. 
Dunno that any of them are particularly crazy. Monkey Shines and American Gothic probably fit the OP’s theme best.
I remember seeing Bedroom Mazurka at the drive in.
Very daring for the time.
Going to drive-in movies was frequent. The only ‘crazy thing’ I can remember seeing was Undercovers Hero (1974). I remember like it it, but I only saw it that one time. I’d like to see it again.
Ditto Bank Shot (1974).
During the worst of Covid, we missed movie theaters, so I took my wife to a drive-in out in the country that I’d occasionally driven past (I take lesser-traveled roads whenever possible). They were showing classic Summer Movies; we saw JAWS and E.T.
But the best part was the small-town atmosphere. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, you’d have a dozen cheerleaders still in their uniforms after the High School’s Big Game, and pickups with six good ol’ boys in the back (and a coon dog).
And the concession stand! They had Grandma Mabel’s Magic Corn Dogs and Gutbuster Burgers (a whole pound of beef, and double American Cheese), and Sloppy Joes from Grandma Mabel’s original recipe.
And sweets galore: six foot Red Vines, Giant Mega-Slushies (purple swirled with blue), and… Funnel Cake Fries? [shrug]
Omigosh, I just found their web site … I think it’s a Geocities one, sparkling starfields and all.
“Show Starts At Dusk”…so nostalgic.
I’ve only been to 1 drive in theater more than once. The county it was in only had 6 other movie screens, counting part-time ones, so it was a legitimate addition to its theater capacity. I’ve driven past a few others in the past decade or so, in even more isolated places, and the only reason I know they aren’t closed is that they have the latest movie names on the marquee.
I was only physically at 2 other ones that I remember: once, to watch a revival of Star Wars (probably right before Return of the Jedi came out), and once, to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but it was double billed with Pretty in Pink, and the people I was with didn’t want to sit through it in order to get to FBDO so we left.
The one that I went to multiple times had an interesting playground: whether intentionally or not, it had a merry-go-round that was tilted at like 10 or more degrees, which carved a divot in the dirt on one side and allowed you to go up in the air on the other side.
Growing up in Southern California, “going to the movies” meant “going to the drive-in”. When I was 6, my mom said, “Put your shoes on; we’re going to the movies.” I was totally confused; “It’s the middle of the day! And why do I need to wear shoes?” I had no idea you could watch a movie indoors.
I used to go to the Drive-In all the time. There was one within walking distance of my house, in fact, and some others within driving distance.
It was just a regular movie theater, though, showing standard features. In fact, after a decade or so they added an in*door adjunct to the drive-in.
There were no late-night horror shows or anything else. The first movie I saw there was Disney’s Big Red. I saw Dinosaurus there, and King Kong vs. Godzilla. Many years later I saw a re-release of Fantasia there, and thought it was kind of cool to actually see the crescent moon while watching Diana shooting an arrow using the crescent mon as a bow in the “Pastorale” sequence.
But drive-ins became too expensive for their upkeep, especially when the land was more valuable for other uses. It long ago became a set of condos.
In the early years they had a play area for little kids, including a miniature train that rode around the periphery, but that didn’t last long.
Today there are still a few drive-in theaters in New England. The closest is in Mendon MA, but there are others, including one at Weirs Beach in Laconia, NH.
During COVID some places put in impromptu drive-ins, some of which are still operating. There was one at Topsfield Fair Grounds and another in the parking lot at Kowloon’s restaurant (itself something of a throwback – a 1950s era Chinese-“Polynesian” restaurant in the shape of a giant Polynesian hut).
This caused me to look up the theater we used to go to, it’s now a cemetery.
Heck, my high school hosts once a month drive-in nights in the main student lot. They set up risers and a huge screen, broadcast the sound over the radio and play lots of stuff for the whole family. It started back in 2020 as a way to keep people connected with the school without having to interact with people because of plague. Still packing them in in 2022.
I notice they sell various sorts of insect repellent at the concession stand.
OP, you unlocked a memory of a movie I saw at a drive-in in Cornelia, GA. I cannot for the life of me remember the title. I looked through a movie identifier site and couldn’t find it. It didn’t have any big name actors that I can recall, and it came out in the late 70’s.
It was about a guy going to film school with aspirations to be the next Steven Spielberg. From what I remember, the guy was naive to the industry and had no realization of the horse shit he was going to have to endure in making films. His professor was a weirdo with no boundaries who encouraged him to find a “sexy vixen.” There was a fat chick who came on to him and then turned psycho crazy when he shied away from her. There was a pompous film student who was into Bergman-style movies with symbolism. The guy did find a “sexy vixen” willing to be in his project, but she turned out to be a diva who wanted his film crew fired.
Our hero eventually turns things around when he directs a movie for a competition. He blackmails his professor into playing the movie’s villain. He replaces the diva with an ugly duckling chick who of course turns out to be gorgeous when she takes off her glasses and changes her baggy sweater for something sexier. The pompous guy’s movie gets booed, and our hero wins the competition. By the end, some producer enlists him and his co-star gf, they drive in a limo, and the diva looks longingly after him, hoping he’ll remember her.
Ring any bells?
By the way, when I saw Dinosaurus as a kid, it was in a thunderstorm. I’m surprised they didn’t close the theater. It was quite an experience to watch the movie with the windshield wipers going, rain occasionally getting in around the speaker (this was pre-radio broadcast of sound), and every now and then the screen being whited out by a flash of lightning.
Especially as there’s a thunderstorm near the beginning of the film. Takes Sensurround a step further.
When my daughter was 6, the local drive in had Twister. I suggested we go see it, but it was rated PG-13 and I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate. My daughter rolled her eyes and said, “Daddy, it’s weather.” So, we went.
The drive in thought they’d be clever. Before the movie began, they had a “public service announcement” telling everyone that a TORNADO was spotted 2 miles away from TOWN NAME!!! They had strobe lights flashing and thunder sound effects. It was cute. Meanwhile, my daughter didn’t realize it was a joke and she was freaking out.
When I was really young, meaning say 5 or younger, which would have been the early to mid 1980s, there was a small single screen drive-in in our semi-rural North Carolina community. As I remember it, it wasn’t much more than a grass field with a screen at one end and a shack that served as the ticket booth and projection booth at the other. And I think there were the wooden posts to mount your speaker on. I don’t remember there being any sort of snack bar at all, unless I just didn’t pay attention to that as a kid.
I have a distinct memory of seeing the Sesame Street movie Follow that Bird there with a friend. And my parents say we saw The Muppet Movie there, but I have no memory of that.
The place closed at some point in the mid-80s. The screen and projection booth got torn down at some point later. And later still pine trees took over the site, so today there is no indication whatsoever that there was ever a drive-in there.
Since then I didn’t get to visit a drive-in until I moved to California as an adult. Sacramento still had an operating driving, with multiple screens. For a long time there were rumors that the owner was going to sell the land to a developer who was going to build a shopping center on the site, so you’d better go experience the drive-in now while you still have a chance. And that never happened. The drive-in is still there and operating. And the current owners have invested in digital projection technology, so I figure if they spent the money on that they must plan on continue on keeping it open for the foreseeable future.
ETA: The screens at Sacramento’s drive-in are visible from the Hwy 50 freeway, so it’s fun to make a game of trying to guess what movie is playing when you drive past it at night. This also created a controversy when they were showing 50 Shades of Grey, because OMG what if a child sees a brief glimpse of nudity while driving by.
The only drive-in movie memory that stands out from my younger years is seeing 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in 1963(?). We had a really cool babysitter and she got the okay to take me and my brother as a special treat. I remember being totally engrossed with the giant squid–it was much more impressive than the one on the submarine ride at Disneyland.
I remember my parents loading the 5 of us kids in the station wagon in our jammies (I was 11 or 12, the youngest was maybe 1.) I’m pretty sure it was a double feature, maybe with cartoons, but the main feature was Cat Ballou. I remember Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye singing throughout the movie, and I remember Lee Marvin singing Happy Birthday at the wake. It was years later before I actually watched the whole movie and understood what was going on. I’m pretty sure we missed a lot because we were goofing around.
And I think that was the only time they took us to a drive-in.
For many years there was a drive in movie theater only a few miles from my house. It was demolished long ago and the land is now an outdoor shopping center.
Caught this one with my dad.
https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/queen-of-blood-poster.jpg
