A few months ago, I mentioned the Shocker Internet Drive In as the best virtual drive-in experience I’ve found. Since then, I’ve heard nothing about whoever lovingly stitched these 3+ hour videos together for our viewing pleasure. (If you know anything, please leave a comment.)
Anyway, it’s Halloween, so I thought I’d celebrate with Shocker episode #41, a 1940s Bela Lugosi triple feature. Check out Black Dragons, Voodoo Man, and Bowery at Midnight, plus a bumper crop of drive-in previews and intermission films. Enjoy!
WFAA, Dallas’s news leader, provided an excellent report about the funding problems of the Brazos Drive-In in Granbury TX. Not only did WFAA give us this embedded video, the web page with the story also includes some great photos and even linked to the Brazos web site, something that surprisingly few news story pages bother to do. Good job!
According to Brazos owner Jennifer Miller, converting to a digital projection system could cost as much as $100,000. Miller and Brazos manager Brenda Stewart have “teamed up to save the cinema,” WFAA says, though it’s hard to tell exactly what they’re doing to raise money.
The story also says that no matter what happens, the screen and concession building will remain because they “are considered historical.” As Miller put it, “It will look like a drive-in, but there may be 1,000 apartments in the parking lot.”
For the full story and those photos, go check out the story at the WFAA site. I also found another Brazos story from July 2012 by a different WFAA reporter but hosted by KHOU, Houston’s news leader. You might want to go watch that one too.
It’s been a long time since we wrote about Randy Lorenz, who wants to build a drive-in theater in Blue Grass IA. Back in January, I thought that his ideas sounded nebulous and speculative. Shows what I know. This week, the Blue Grass city council unanimously approved the drive-in, and Lorenz hopes to open it in April 2014.
According to Quad-Cities Online, Lorenz plans to start with two screens with the possibility of expanding to four. The site will include a play area for children and eventually mini-golf. “We have been working on this for six years. We are happy they’ve finally found a home for us,” he said.
There’s also more on the story from WHBF, the Quad Cities’ news leader. In the Worldnow-hosted video delicately embedded here, Lorenz talks about letting patrons text in their concession stand orders. You’ll also get to see glimpses of the drive-in’s layout and map, plus a look at the simple farmland it is now.
For the drive-ins that can swing the digital conversion, a boom time is coming soon. Looks like the Blue Grass is going to be another example on that leading edge.
