Beyond Dream's Door

"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 6/29/90

cutline: Typical Ohio State professor demonstrating a campus ROTC drill in "Beyond Dream's Door"

By Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas

It's true that they barred me from the Putt-Putt miniature golf course on Coit Road for putting a two-foot dent in a baby elephant, but it wasn't my fault. Mavis Hunley kept knocking her ball into the decorative concrete jungle-swamp water garden because "I like to take a good solid swat at it." And I TOLD her not to do that. I told her, "Mavis, they got three-year-old kids that can hit the ball hard enough to get it up to the hole." But Mavis said the game is a good way to take out your aggressions, and so she pretty much smashed the yellow Day-Glo paint off the ball every single time she hit it.

Every time we play miniature golf, I think it's gonna be different. I think we're gonna concentrate on the game, try to LEARN something out there on the course, but then Mavis or Wanda Bodine or Rhett Beavers or SOMEBODY decides their personal honor is at stake.

Like, if you take Wanda to the golf course, she gets more and more hacked off every time you have to pass one of those seventeen-year-old girls in the blue-jean mini-skirts. You know the ones I'm talking about? The ones that are always playing miniature golf with guys named Shane that wear football jerseys that are cut in half across their chest?

These gals, as we all know, don't know how to play miniature golf. We all realize this. We all realize they're gonna put their ball down on the mat and sweep it like a broom and then giggle. And then, when it goes too far and bounces off the back and comes all the way back down to where it started, they're gonna giggle some more and jump up and down and HIT IT AGAIN BEFORE IT STOPS ROLLING. I know this. You know this. Girls in blue-jean mini-skirts have been doing this for years. Everybody who has played miniature golf knows this.

Wanda doesn't know this.

"What does she thinks she's doing?" Wanda will say.

I'll try to explain. "She's jumping up and down so Shane will see her mini-skirt."

"SEE her mini-skirt? SEE it? I think we've all seen ENOUGH of it."

"It's your turn."

"What?"

"It's your turn to play, Wanda. Hit the goldurn ball."

And then, of course, Wanda will hit the ball off the back board and it'll come all the way back down to where it started.

Or you take Mavis. Mavis's problem is kids with purple hair or a lot of chains on their shirt. You know this group, don't you? The group of six, and NONE of them EVER get their ball in the hole. Never, ever, not once. They just hit it and then hit it again and then hit it some more, and then they pick it up and start hitting it on the next hole. And when they're not hitting it, they act like they're about to hit one another over the head with their clubs. And when they're not doing that, they all hit their balls at the same time. And when they're not doing that, they KICK the balls?

"It's punk golf, Mavis. Don't worry about it."

But she can't stand it.

"I'm gonna speak to the manager."

"What good is that gonna do. They can play punk golf if they want to."

"It says here, right on the scorecard, that only one person plays at a time."

"Yeah, right, Mavis. Maybe we'll need the police."

"Five-stroke maximum! Five-stroke maximum!"

"Mavis, they hit the goldurn balls so fast nobody can tell how many times they hit em anyway."

"I saw one guy hit his ball NINE times on one hole."

"It's your turn."

"What?"

"It's your turn to play."

And that's when Mavis decides she has to take a good solid whack at the ball. And so last week, at the time in question, she took a full backswing, like she was in the U.S. Open or something, and she hit the ball so hard that it flew right off the end of the club, bounced off a replica of the Matterhorn, skimmed across a zebra's back, and fell into two feet of water underneath a spraying-trunk baby elephant. I didn't wanna say anything at the time, but it also missed a kid with orange hair by about nine inches.

Fortunately, the kid thought it was really cool.

I didn't want this situation to escalate, though, and so I plunged into the swamp and, in one graceful athletic movement, vaulted over the baby elephant's back and kicked Mavis's ball off the bottom with the side of my boot.

Unfortunately, it landed on the assistant night manager's Adam's apple.

Well, it didn't really land there. It kind of hit there and sprung backward, and when the ambulance came it was . . .

Well, all I've got to say is we could have made $10,000 on "America's Funniest Home Videos" if we'd just remembered to bring the camera.

I think it's a little strict, though, to get barred just for one lousy dent in a baby elephant. I could have reached down in there and beat it back into shape. I used to work for Deke's Auto Body Repair.

"Joe Bob, you've got to learn to stay out of other people's business," Mavis said. "They wasn't your ball."

"That's right," Wanda added. "Serves you right for meddling."

Speaking of demons with weapons, "Beyond Dream's Door" is a grisly video release made in Columbus, Ohio, for practically no money that is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Since I've seen Yvonne de Carlo eating human toes, this is a very high compliment. I've watched it twice and I'm not sure I totally understand it, but I'll give it a shot:

Ben is a college student who decides he needs a psychology class to figure out why a lasagna-faced toothy dinosaur-demon is trying to eat his head off in his dreams. Sometimes the demon acts like he's Ben's adorable little brother Ricky--until Ben remembers that he doesn't HAVE an adorable little brother Ricky. Sometimes the demon comes to him as a brunette in a Frederick's of Hollywood outfit. But Ben knows one thing for sure: the minds of Ohio State

will have the answers.

Unfortunately, the finest mind Ohio State has to offer is a psych professor who likes to stick a gun in his eye to see what his students will do. The slime demon makes a Sunday brunch out of this guy pretty early in the second reel. But he doesn't just stop with psych professors and disturbed young undergrads. This demon is so evil that he starts eating--oh no! it can't be!--the teaching assistants, too.

Now the demon is totally in control. There's never ANYBODY around to answer your questions.

And do you know why the demon does all this?

Because Ben doesn't remember any of his dreams from the time he was nine years old. And so that makes all the zombies of the underworld furious because . . . well, I didn't quite get the because part . . . and also the demon has to destroy a page out of a psych book that tells about this guy 20 years ago who had the same dreams Ben is having, because that would prove the demon exists, and . . . actually, I don't know WHAT this movie's about, but I watched it twice anyhow.

Six breasts. Three dead bodies. She-demon. Head-chomping. Brain-splitting. Slimy squid-leg attack. Foot-eating. Stick rammed through the hand. Head as lawn ornament. Assorted zombies. Three heads roll. Gratuitous voiceover poetry. Telephone Fu. Ohio State Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Nick Baldasare, as Ben, for saying "Beyond dream's door is where horror lies"; Susan Pinsky, as Zombie T.A. Julie, for saying "What's wrong? You don't want me to drive?"; Darby Vasbinder, as the nekkid nightmare witch-woman, for saying "You're not the first, you're not the last--you're simply next"; Norm Singer, as the goofy Professor Noxx, for saying "Be good to your minds, and they'll be good to you"; and Jay Woelfel, for writing, directing, composing the music, and making the first movie about killer zombies in purgatory trying to get revenge on people who don't remember their dreams like they're supposed to. I think.

Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS

Communist Alert! The Hamilton-Fairfield area of Ohio, once one of the proudest drive-in markets in America, has lost three of its four drive-ins. The Valley Drive-In and its all-pickup-truck audience is gone. The Acme Drive-In closed last year. The Colonial Drive-In closed two years ago. And all that's left now is the Holiday Drive-In, and all they're showing is wimpola indoor bullstuff. Corinne E. Lehmann of Hamilton, O., is moving to Connecticut in disgust and reminds us all that, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and his "We Are the Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.

Dear Joe Bob,

Howdy and well met, great critic of gore!

With the help of a program called Adventure Construction Set, I've made an ok computer game called Chainsaw Zombies, and the baby's dedicated to you. Unfortunately it's on the Commodore, so if you want a copy, buy Adventure Construction Set ($6) and drop me a line for the game. It's a great plot, with chainsaw-wielding zombies, aliens and even a couple of gerbils.

Sincerely (oh yeah),

Aaron Maupin

Fresno, O.

Dear Aaron:

You invented a computer game where you chainsaw gerbils?

That's such a waste.

Doesn't it dull the blade?

Dear Joe Bob,

How come the U.S. government sent all those soldiers down to Panama to get Noreeayguh, when he wasn't there at all? My friend Chris Craig and I saw him at the Four Seasons Mall here in Greensboro, eating at the Famous Corn Dog. Maybe it wasn't him, but it sure looked like him.

Sincerely,

Paul McGregor

Greensboro, N.C.

Dear Paul:

The Four Seasons Mall in Greensboro is frequently used to house very dangerous prisoners. It's psychologically devastating to them. It totally erodes their self-respect and personal worth.

That was him.

Joe Bob,

I made a scene laughing this morning at local coffee shop. Thought you'd enjoy this article:

"Custom Condoms of Somerville, Mass, is at the San Francisco gift show introducing 'Knight Light,' the first condom that glows in the dark. The consumer simply holds the condom up to a light for a few seconds, activating a bright glow that lasts for 15 minutes and an afterglow that lasts for more than five hours.

Knight Lights will be in gift and novelty stores by mid-March, marketed (for about $2.50 each) as novelty devices until they receive FDA approval, which should take around three months.

Adam Glickman, one of the founders of Custom Condom, told Personal yesterday that the greenish phosphorous light emitted by the condom is not strong enough to read a book or sew a button on by, but 'is just bright enough to enable you to see other parts of your body.'

As to whether this out-of-bulb light source might be useful in the event of, say, an earthquake-caused blackout, Glickman said, 'It might make people visible to each other. You could put it on your nose, for example.'"

Pat Markovich-Treece

Oakland

Dear Pat:

This stuff happens in the Bay Area, and I KNOW it goes out on the Associated Press wire, and I KNOW it floods into newsrooms all over America, and then the idiots choosing what's news and what's not NEVER PUT IT IN THE PAPERS OUT HERE.

I could have been flicking my Bic all this time.

Joe Bob,

As the ultimate critic of B movies only you can settle this dispute between my wife and me. I feel that Nick Nolte has done some important films. "Under Fire" and "Farewell to the King" are two of my favorites. My lovely wife says any movie with Nick Nolte in it is a B movie and therefore not "important" enough to be called a "film." Who is right?

Mark Malonek

Grand Island, N.Y.

Dear Mark:

The only Nick Nolte flicks I like are "Return to Macon County," "North Dallas Forty" and "48 HRS." Everthing else the guy's made is dog doo.

So you're right.

Will this shut her up?

Dear Joe Bob,

The setting for "Lock Up" was supposed to be in New Jersey when in fact the actual prison the producers used was the Ohio State Reformatory in beautiful Mansfield, Ohio.

I am myself a past alumnus of this most hideous of places, and I can tell you one thing for sure--Sly Rocky Rambo would never had made it out of there alive, if he was really incarcerated at that institution. Reason why? He looks too good.

Terry E. Nelson

London, O.

Dear Terry:

Did they really FORCE you guys to play football in the mud?

What is this, the Dark Ages?

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