COVID-19 made cinemas a petri dish for viral transmission. But their closure doesn’t mean that big screen entertainment is completely dead. The drive-in theatre, that quintessential piece of Americana, is having a rare moment in the spotlight. Here, audiences can maintain social distancing by enjoying the movie from their vehicles.
The only problem is that there are no new films coming out to screen, so we’ve seen some revivals of classics. Last month, Sam Raimi’s horror pic The Evil Dead began screening at various drive-in theaters and proved such a hit that the run has been expanded.
The highlights are gala screenings taking place at the Midway Drive-In Theater in Dixon, IL on Friday July 10th and Saturday July 11th. Bloody Disgusting are reporting that the Friday show will see a double bill of Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn and Army of Darkness, while Saturday will be the 4K restoration of the original movie, followed by a double-bill of Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981) & I Drink Your Blood (1970).
Both of those events will have Campbell present, who will be participating in an “extended” Q&A session. Tickets are available here and are sure to sell out fast.
If you can’t make it to those, you might be able to make it to another drive-in for some deadite-mashing action. These are screenings of the first movie without any bells and whistles, but hey, it’s a great pic:
- 7/2 – Sun-Ray Pop-Up Drive-In at Callahan Speedway, Jacksonville, FL
- 7/3 – 7/7 – Melody Drive-In, Knox, IN
- 7/3- 7/10 – Blue Starlite Drive-in, Austin, TX
- 7/10 – Skyway Drive-In, Warren, OH (with ZOMBIE)
- 9/5 – Fair Oaks Drive-In, Middletown, NY
Hopefully, more dates will be added to that list. And if you do go, why not mark the occasion with an official Evil Dead face mask?