We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Cody lets the latest Full Moon movie guide his viewing choices.
BARBIE & KENDRA CRASH JOE BOB’S DRIVE-IN JAMBOREE (2024)
Back in 2020, Full Moon released a trilogy of movies that centered on the dimwitted duo of Barbie and Kendra, played by Cody Renee Cameron and Robin Sydney. The world was on lockdown that year, but Full Moon was able to put together parodies of current events – the Corona outbreak, the Tiger King phenomenon, and the attempt to raid Area 51 – by mixing newly shot footage of Cameron and Sydney with stock footage from movies in the Full Moon library that had been re-dubbed to tell goofy new stories. That’s how we got Corona Zombies (now known as Barbie & Kendra Meet the Corona Zombies), Barbie & Kendra Save the Tiger King, and Barbie & Kendra Storm Area 51. The final entry in that trilogy ended on a cliffhanger... but never mind all that. Four years later, Full Moon has released a new Barbie and Kendra movie, and it turns out they’re just fine. The only problem is, they haven’t yet met their dream man. They’re looking to be trophy wives for a manly man who wears boots, can do housework, thinks he knows everything about everything, tells bad jokes, drinks beer, likes trashy movies and trashy women, defends freaks, geeks, and mutants, and is so important that he has own personal Mail Girl... So when they see legendary drive-in critic and movie host Joe Bob Briggs in a TV ad for his upcoming Drive-in Jamboree event in Las Vegas, they think they have spotted their ideal sugar daddy. So they head to Vegas in hopes of hooking up with Joe Bob.
The first three Barbie and Kendra movies were built around stock footage from films like Hell of the Living Dead, Zombies vs. Strippers, Terror in the Jungle, Luana, Space Thing, and The Day Time Ended that was then dubbed over to tell new, comedic stories. This time around, a pair of Exorcist knock-offs – the 1974 Turkish film Seytan and the 1977 film Ruby – get the dubbed-over comedy treatment, turning it into the story of a drive-in that exclusively shows the Turkish version of The Exorcist (they’re now on their 7000th screening)... and then things go terribly wrong when a girl becomes possessed after watching too many bad reboots, remakes, and spin-offs on streaming services. The lines spoken over the original dialogue are extremely silly, often corny, always ridiculous – and sometimes quite funny as well.
Of course, the main draw of Barbie & Kendra Crash Joe Bob’s Drive-in Jamboree are the scenes where we get to see Joe Bob and Darcy interact with Barbie and Kendra. Joe Bob doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time, he only shows up for a few scenes, but the moments when he does cross paths with Barbie and Kendra are fun to watch. There are also appearances by Dave Sheridan, wrestlers The Bunny and The Blade, and Sleepaway Camp star Felissa Rose – not as herself, but as Stu Dio, a woman who has bought the drive-in and plans to turn it into a golf course. But don’t worry about all the plot stuff; it doesn’t take up much of the movie’s 51 minute running time.
The previous Barbie and Kendra movies have their charms, but Barbie & Kendra Crash Joe Bob’s Drive-in Jamboree is my favorite of the bunch, thanks to the Joe Bob element.
RUBY (1977)
Since I just watched Full Moon make a mockery of Ruby with the stock footage scenes in Barbie & Kendra Crash Joe Bob’s Drive-in Jamboree, I decided to go back and watch the original film, which was directed by Curtis Harrington from a screenplay crafted by George Edwards, Steve Krantz, and Barry Schneider... and while this one was definitely intended to cash in on the success of The Exorcist, especially in the final 25 minutes or so, the filmmakers did take a unique approach to it all.
The story is set in Florida and begins in the year 1935, when pregnant lounge singer Ruby (Piper Laurie of Carrie) witnessed her gangster boyfriend Nicky Rocco (Sal Vecchio) get gunned down by several other gangsters. Jump ahead sixteen years. Ruby now lives in a roadhouse at the edge of a swamp and spends a good deal of her time getting drunk and reminiscing about her days as a singer. Also living in the roadhouse are Ruby’s sixteen-year-old daughter Leslie (Janit Baldwin), who has been mute since she was born, a wheelchair-bound former gangster named Jake (Fred Kohler Jr.), who had his eyes cut out, and Ruby’s boyfriend Vince (Stuart Whitman of the killer bunny classic Night of the Lepus), who also works in the ticket booth at the drive-in she owns. That drive-in is right beside the roadhouse, so Ruby can keep an eye on the place through her telescope.
We’re not very deep into the running time before drive-in workers, who are also former gangsters, start experiencing supernatural events that are often fatal for them. Ruby has the deaths kept under wraps and the bodies dumped, and she starts gradually falling apart because she knows it’s the spirit of Nicky haunting the place, looking for revenge. And when you have Piper Laurie playing a drunk woman who’s losing her mind, you have the makings of some great line readings and entertaining over-acting.
The Exorcist element really comes in toward the end, when Leslie seems to be possessed by the spirit of the father who was killed before she was born. Luckily, Ruby and Vince happen to be acquainted with a prison psychologist who’s gifted with ESP, Roger Davis as Dr. Paul Keller, so they’re able to call him in to try to help with the paranormal activity at the drive-in.
Ruby has a pretty cool trailer, which is how I first became aware of it – but it’s not as good as that trailer makes it look, so I was a bit disappointed by the film the first time I watched it. It does make for a decently entertaining viewing experience, though, with some fun performances, some nice displays of supernatural activity, and the great core concept of a haunted drive-in. I can understand why you don’t hear people talk about it very often, but it’s worth a watch. Just keep your expectations low.
SEYTAN (1974)
Seytan, on the other hand, primarily exists just for people to make a mockery of it. It’s basically a scene-for-scene remake of The Exorcist... and when you’re doing a scene-for-scene remake one of the most highly respected horror films ever made, a movie that was made with the backing of a major studio, on a dirt cheap budget, you’re going to pale in comparison. Director Metin Erksan made a valiant attempt to follow in the footsteps of William Friedkin with this material and I suppose writer Yılmaz Tümtürk did a fine job of translating the original script into Turkish... but it’s just funny to see the scenes from The Exorcist play out in with lesser production value and performances.
Still, if you’ve ever wondered what The Exorcist would be like if it had taken place in Istanbul instead of Washington, D.C.... and if the filmmakers had substantially less money to work with... Seytan is there to satisfy your curiosity. Chances are, you’ll be laughing while watching scene after scene play out with “Tubular Bells” on the soundtrack, and especially when you see the bargain basement version of the possessed girl makeup – with Canan Perver’s Gul standing in for Linda Blair’s Regan. This was Perver’s screen acting debut, and it’s good to see that her career continued for another thirty years and twenty-five more credits, so at least Seytan wasn’t her only experience working on a movie set.
And if you can’t find a copy of The Exorcist, at least you’ll be able to find Seytan streaming for free on Tubi and/or YouTube.
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