Crabs (Ned Manning) and his girlfriend Carmen (Natalie McCurry) arrive at a Drive-In cinema to park up and have sex whilst a trashy film plays in the background. Whilst attempting to do just that the wheels on their car, a vintage Chevy Crabs 'borrowed' from his brother, are stolen by the police. When Crabs tries to complain to the guy that runs the Drive In he's told that there's no way to get home or indeed out. It turns out that Crabs and Carmen have stumbled into a new prison set up by the Government in order to contain the troublesome teenagers that have been wrecking havoc on the roads of near future Australia.Like Crabs the audience is not given much detail about this and gleams their information as Crabs does seeing the bizarre situation from his viewpoint.
The film is set in the near future where the roads are battle grounds as cops have lost a lot of authority and gangs of 'carboys' roam the streets stealing car parts from the many road accidents. Crabs brother Frank is a tow-truck guy, a very dangerous job, trying to beat other tow-truck guys to the scene of an accident, fighting off carboys with a wrench and bribing the uncaring police. Like many Australian genre pictures the cars are at the centre of the film, symbols of death and the collapse of society but also due to their imprisonment in the Drive In they become the teenagers homes.
The strange thing about the teenagers living in the Drive In, essentially a prison camp, is that they are pretty happy about their lot. They get junk food to eat, drugs, the pill and a steady stream of Australian exploitation classics playing on the massive screen above. The films include Turkey Shoot and The Man From Hong Kong, both also directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, and often mirror the action in the film, so if there is a car chase in Dead-End Drive In then there is a car chase on the screen.
One of the inmates points out that outside of the Drive In he had nothing, he was unemployed, he only just managed to get one meal a day; here he has food, drugs and entertainment. There are obvious comparisons to Australia as a prison camp that criminals are thrown into and ultimately find a home. This is touched on but not really developed like a lot of the themes in Dead-End Drive In. When later in the film the Government, obviously pleased with how their prison camp is working out, decides to drop off some delinquents of different ethnicities into the camp the current occupants are not happy. They decide to form a whites-only group who meet and all aggressively want the '"non-whites" out. Again this racist subplot is only thrown into the mix and not really developed. It also complicates the sympathies of the audience as it makes the inmates very very unlikeable and very hard to care about, although maybe that was the intention.
Crabs is supposed to be the hero of the film as he seems to be the only one unhappy with their situation and desperate to get back the life he once had, a life without his girlfriend who wants to stay in the Drive In. Before they enter the Drive In we see some of Crabs' life and we see someone constantly striving to be more than he is, desperate to join his brother Frank in the tow-truck business and to match up to him physically. Unfortunately the character of Crabs is not very compelling and it seems hard to get behind him even when he ultimately attempts a breakout from the prison. This seems to be in part down to pretty poor writing and also bad acting by Ned Manning. This is a real let down as a stronger lead could have made this film a lot better.The visuals in the film are really great and well served now on DVD with a fantastic print in 2.35:1. Overall the film is enjoyable and makes a great double bill feature (I watched it with Fair Game) but there are failings in the film and a lot of missed opportunities. There was definitely a great cult classic in there but the film doesn't quite live up to it.
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