"Stuntsploitation" trailer evokes '70s memories of Chilliwack Drive-in Theatre

A little while back Georgia Straight publisher Dan McLeod, knowing my obsession with all things '70s, forwarded me a trailer for a movie from 1978 called Stunt Rock. Rather surprisingly, I'd never even heard of the film, but instantly became a fan, even though the band featured in the "stuntsploitation" epic, Sorcery, clearly sucks. How can you not like a movie trumpeted as "a death wish at 120 decibels!"

Watching the trailer brought back memories of the double-features I'd seen in the '70s at the Chilliwack Drive-in Theatre. I remember it being the ideal venue for lurid Eurotrash horror items like The Blood Rose (beware the randy midgets!), but--with its tinny speakers that hooked onto your car window--not so swift for Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars.

They tore the drive-in down in 1984, I believe, just after Bryan Adams used it to shoot some scenes for his "Summer of '69" music video. The cool thing is that the movie playing during Adams' promotional clip is the low-budget 1958 sci-fi/horror flick It! The Terror From Beyond Space, which first turned me on to scary movies as a kid in the '60s. Ridley Scott basically remade that movie in 1979 and called it Alien.

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