Drive-in advocate. Exploitation-cinema connoisseur. A man who’s been killed by Leatherface and fired by Robert De Niro. Joe Bob Briggs is all of these things and more. He’s currently back in the saddle with his weekly show The Last Drive-In on Shudder (AMC’s horror- and genre-based streaming service), wherein he holds forth on messes and masterpieces alike with the eye of a critic who knows his shit and the heart of a fan who genuinely digs the splatter and soul of a proper “Spam-in-a-cabin” slaughterfest.
There simply isn’t anyone else like Joe Bob Briggs, and he’s bringing his exhaustively researched presentation How Rednecks Saved Hollywood to Nashville for some joyful mayhem. The Scene was able to speak with the Vandy alum via email in advance of his appearance this week at the Belcourt.
What does it feel like to be returning to Nashville?
Every time I go back to Nashville, people warn me, “Joe Bob, you’re not gonna recognize it, everything’s changed.” And when I get there, I think: A) It’s exactly like I remember it, and B) nothing’s changed. So it’s like a vacation home for me. I loved my time at Vanderbilt. Getting a scholarship to Vanderbilt really changed my life. There are high walls around Vanderbilt, but we would occasionally break out and hit the most wicked joints in Printers Alley. But I actually loved what was behind those walls. I was a library rat.
What do you consider to be the single finest Burt Reynolds performance?
I think it would have to be Deliverance, although Burt would probably disagree.
In your lecture, you touch on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs! Do you consider it to be the pinnacle of redneck horror? I’ve always been partial to Philippe Mora’s The Beast Within, though there’s a lot to be said about how both films are built around the cycles of time.
Jason, you used the dreaded L-word (“lecture”). It’s not a lecture — it’s a delightful evening of gonzo comedic celebrations of the redneck in cinema. Hence all the clips and stills. If you keep calling it a lecture, nobody will come. But to your point: I wouldn’t consider either of those films a pinnacle of redneck horror. We would have to define what we mean by horror, of course, since that’s such a basket term, but I would have to say The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is several thousand degrees more important. It changed film history and changed the culture. It turned the rural South into the most dangerous place on film.
As a point of clarification, do you consider Pumpkinhead to be a redneck horror film? It’s definitely Appalachian/mountain-folky, but as America’s pre-eminent drive-in critic, how do you define it?
Pumpkinhead is part of a genre I call “generic redneck,” in which they use a lot of redneck stereotypes but don’t bother to travel to the South or really portray the cultural background. Lance Henriksen is one of those great New York actors who can convincingly go redneck. Robert Duvall is another one. Paul Newman was another one.
What’s your favorite monster?
Brad Dourif in The Exorcist III.
What are your thoughts on the films of Tennessee’s own Harmony Korine?
Well, I guess if you can’t make it in East Nashville, you can always make it in the East Village.
What, to you, is the Holy Grail of redneck cinema?
The plot would have to include truckers, bimbos committing felonies, backwoods perverts, a country music soundtrack, a country song that has nothing to do with the plot, illegal alcohol, stupid dancing of one sort or another (clogs are optional), at least one character named Cletus, motor vehicle chases with multiple crash-and-burns, a deranged escapee from the mental hospital with a heart of gold, beer, whiskey, at least one stripper named after a place (Dallas, Dakota, Aspen, Chyna, Houston, London, Capri), a plot by the Mafia to take over moonshine operations in Appalachia, a sheriff with a burr haircut, an oversexed preacher and a dog.
Are you a fan of the Billy Bob Thornton film Daddy and Them? Its slow-motion family careen through a liquor store cut to “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” is one of the finest sequences in Southern cinema of the Aughts.
Agreed that it’s vastly underrated and a fitting coda to Jim Varney’s career.
Russ Meyer ladies or Andy Sidaris ladies?
Andy Sidaris by a mile. I can appreciate a large hooter as much as the next guy, but let’s not get ridiculous. Don’t point those things unless you intend to use ’em.
What does it mean, to you, to have broken the internet as you did in May 2018 during the 24-hour marathon you hosted on Shudder?
Well, I had several reactions. The first one was, “Well, we just pissed off several thousand people” — all of whom were messaging me at the time to say, “You ripped us off! I want my money back and I’m never watching Shudder again!” This lasted for about a half-hour. Then it was “Oh my God, Joe Bob, do you know what happened? You knocked out all the servers, nobody can see your show!” And my reaction to that was, “Uh, I kinda wanted people to see it. They can’t see it at all?” “No! Nobody can see it! Isn’t it wonderful?” Uh, yeah, I guess. There were 13 movies in the marathon, and the intros I wanted people especially to see were for the first one and the 13th one. And those are the ones where the entire system went down — nobody saw what I thought were the two most important moments in the whole thing.
Anyhow, the good result of it was the outpouring of love from the drive-in mutants around the country. They started giving me credit for things I really can’t take credit for. I felt like George Foreman in his third comeback fight when he knocked out Michael Moorer at the age of 45. Shudder said, “We wanna give you a show.” Nobody gives guys like me a show. So it means the world to me.
It’s been a year since that marathon, which began this new phase of your career with Shudder, and it’s been building from one success to the next. Are you still able to enjoy movies for fun, or does that have to take a backseat to the work mentality?
I have no problem enjoying the movies, it’s everybody else who gets as serious as cancer about them. My director, my producer, the executives at Shudder — they have actual meetings about what the movies are gonna be. I never had that luxury before. When I was doing Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater at The Movie Channel, and later MonsterVision at TNT, it was, “Hey, here’s a bunch of movies that nobody else at the network cares about.” It’s been interesting to work with people who do exceedingly strange things like show up on the set and write memos and say the word “branding” a lot.
What’s your favorite drive-in currently? We’re fortunate to have a couple within an hour’s drive of Nashville at the moment. The Stardust in Watertown is a personal fave.
I’m exceedingly fond of the Delsea Drive-In in Vineland, N.J., because everything about it seems unchanged since about, oh, 1957.
Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive In was the first book of film criticism I ever owned, and you were very kind and signed my Blu-ray of Pray for Death at the 2018 Chattanooga Film Festival. Your aesthetic has helped shape my own critical voice (20 years, professionally), and you will always have my gratitude.
I knew we were soulmates when you handed me that Blu-ray. Pray for Death rules. [Pray for Death’s star] Sho Kosugi is a drive-in kind of guy and a redneck. He’s a Japanese redneck. Which just goes to prove: We’re like cockroaches, we’re everywhere.
