Clown horror: Drive Thru. Would you like some cheese with your dead meat?
Just finished watching the campy slasher comedy Drive Thru (2007), featuring a killer clown mascot of a popular fast food restaurant. The name of the mascot is Horny the Clown and the name of the restaurant is Hella Burger, so you pretty much know what to expect going into this one. Our killer Horny is awesome, goofy yet freaky like the clowns in Killer Clowns from Outer Space. In fact, Horny’s clown mask is modeled after the fast food drive thru intercom, so his mouth looks like a speaker you’d talk into to place your order. It’s all cheesy fun plus some pretty good gore. The actors and director don’t bother to take themselves seriously, just going with it, which really works. There’s some good Styx/AC/DC references for 80s lovers and a slight obsession with ‘wiggers’ and black street talk (even though all the main characters are white). Also, there are also extraneous political jabs at Orange County, Republicans, and George Bush. It’s oddly out of place and feels somewhat forced, even if it’s not as excessive as the political satire of David Arquette’s liberal horror film The Tripper. I know both films were released when Bush was still in office, but that’s simply not the kind of ‘clown’ horror I want to relive again and again!