Drive Thru is a new addition to the teen slasher genre, but it's hardly what you would call an "update." It treads the same ground as every other slasher flick with its tongue firmly in the audience's collective cheek. Yes, Drive Thru pokes a bit of fun at the genre itself, and it never takes itself too seriously, but it does make a half-hearted attempt at telling its own slasher story, and it doesn't fail completely.
Granted, there is nothing here that isn't done better in at least a dozen other slasher films, but Drive Thru manages to be brutal without being gory, and I suppose that's something of a feat. The simple fact of the matter is that you can't make a slasher flick anymore, and though I could blame this group, that political party, or that religion, the genre has been covered handily.
The Friday the 13th remake went as far as anything I've seen in the last 20+ years or so, and I hear a handful of newer films are also going back to the slasher well, but Drive Thru relies solely on brutality and obvious "inside" jokes to make its point, which is apparently that "anyone can make a slasher film."
Not so, guys. Not so.
© C Harris Lynn, 2010
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