Drive-Thru

Drive-Thru is a 2007 American dark comedy slasher film directed and written by Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn, starring Leighton Meester, Nicholas D'Agosto and Melora Hardin. It is set in Orange County, California and involves an evil clown as a serial killer. The film was released direct-to-video on May 29, 2007.

Plot
Brandon Meeks (Edward DeRuiter), Tony (Haven Lamoureux) and their girlfriends, Brittany (Jessica Landon) and Tiffany (Nicole Cavazos), arrive at the fast food restaurant Hella Burger. Upon placing an order at the drive-thru, the drive through teller insults them and Tony breaks into the restaurant to confront the teller. He searches the restaurant and Horny the Clown, the mascot of Hella Burger and the one who had been insulting the group over the drive-thru intercom, jumps out and attacks him. Brandon enters the restaurant to look for Tony and ends up finding him dead, with his face in the fryer. He is then attacked and murdered by Horny with a meat cleaver. Horny then proceeds outside and kills both Brittany and Tiffany when they discover the bodies of their boyfriends in the backseat.

Meanwhile, Mackenzie (Leighton Meester) is having a house party with her boyfriend Fisher (Nicholas D'Agosto), and friends Val (Sita Young), Van (Penn Badgley) and Starfire (Rachael Bella). The group find a ouija board and decide to ask it what their future will hold, to which the ouija board spells out "N1KLPL8", a message that is unclear until the next day when the group see a news bulletin, showing the message is the license plate on Brandon's car. The following day at school, Val is ambushed by Horny in the locker room. Mackenzie complains that someone stole her camera at the party, but after school the janitor, Lenny (Sean Whalen), gives her the camera.

Mackenzie stays behind to develop the photos, and discovers that they show the deaths of the four murdered teenagers. Horny chases Mackenzie into the gymnasium, where she finds Val's head has been placed in a modified microwave, to which it is turned on and causes Val's head to explode, killing her. Horny chases Mackenzie throughout the school, where she finds Lenny has been hanged, before bumping into a police officer, who fails to find any bodies. Mackenzie is taken down to the police station with her mom, Marcia (Melora Hardin), and dad, Bill (Paul Ganus), to be questioned by Detective Brenda Chase (Lola Glaudini) and Detective Dwayne Crockers (Larry Joe Campbell). The two detectives don't believe Mackenzie's story, but do suspect Lenny as the killer.

The next day, the detectives visit Jack Benjamin (John Gilbert), the owner of Hella Burger, who proves to be no help in solving the case. That night, Mackenzie and Fisher get ready to work at a carnival's haunted house. As they work, they have an argument with Chad (Tyler King) and Tina (Maliabeth Johnson), before they go into the ride. Suddenly, the lights are switched off. Chad is decapitated off-screen and Tina is stabbed to death by Horny. Mackenzie and Starfire enter the haunted house and find Fisher in a state of shock after witnessing the murders.

Mackenzie goes to visit Fisher in the hospital with Marcia. Mackenzie becomes annoyed with her mother as she now believes she is hiding something from her, as all the so far murdered teenagers are the children of her old high-school friends. Detective Chase overhears this and questions Tina's father, Bert (Robert Curtis Brown). Meanwhile, Horny attacks Spanky and Chuck inside the funhouse inside Hella Burger, killing them both.

As Mackenzie arrives home, Marcia finally admits that when she was young, she and her friends accidentally killed Archie Benjamin (Van De La Plante), Jack Benjamin's son, on his 18th birthday at Hella Burger, and now his vengeful spirit has returned from the dead to kill the children of his murderers as revenge for being bullied and harassed by them, along with the rest of his peers. Mackenzie and Fisher are attacked by Horny in a house, resulting in Mackenzie being knocked unconscious and Fisher being cornered. Fisher manages to unmask Horny, whose eyes become bloodshot upon looking at Horny's burnt and deformed face. Archie then hurls Fisher through a window. Meanwhile, Detective Chase and Detective Crockers come to the house and find Jack Benjamin behind his own bed, trying to hide from Archie, and they arrest him believing that he is behind the murders.

Mackenzie wakes up in Hella Burger, tied to a chair with her mouth gagged and surrounded by the bodies of her friends. A birthday cake is in front of her, as it is now her 18th birthday. Horny appears and reveals his true plan before dousing her with gasoline and holds a lit candle close to her face, about to repeat what Marcia did to him years ago. Marcia arrives and shoots Archie in the mouth but with no effect, who in turns chokes her out. Mackenzie takes a drink of whiskey from a flask that she has with her and holds it in her mouth. Horny torments her with another candle while cackling evilly at her face to face, unaware that Mackenzie has the whiskey in her mouth. She spits the whiskey at him, setting him on fire. Mackenzie and Marcia escape as Horny burns to death.

Mackenzie and Marcia rush to the hospital to see Fisher, whose eyes are still bloodshot, revealing that Archie's spirit has possessed Fisher's body. Mackenzie goes in to see him only to find the window open and his discarded clothes thrown outside on the ground, implying that Archie will continue his murderous rampage through Fisher's body. Detective Crockers goes to Hella Burger and places an order at the drive thru, only for Horny to jump onto the hood of his patrol car, killing him through the windshield off-screen.

Cast

 * Leighton Meester as Mackenzie Carpenter
 * Nicholas D'Agosto as Fisher Kent
 * Melora Hardin as Marcia Carpenter
 * Lola Glaudini as Detective Brenda Chase
 * Larry Joe Campbell as Detective Dwayne Crockers
 * Penn Badgley as Van
 * Rachael Bella as Starfire
 * Shedrack Anderson as Chuck Taylor
 * Sean Whalen as Lenny
 * Robert Curtis Brown as Bert McCandless
 * John Gilbert as Jack Benjamin
 * Maliabeth Johnson as Tina McCandless
 * Clyde Kusatsu as Fred Kukizaki
 * Edward DeRuiter as Brandon Meeks
 * Van De La Plante as Horny the Clown / Archie Benjamin
 * Sita Young as Val Espinoza
 * Haven Lamoureux as Tony
 * Paul Ganus as Bill Carpenter
 * Morgan Spurlock as Robbie
 * Gordon Clapp as Voice of Horny the Clown
 * Caia Coley as Anonymous Nurse
 * Karis Campbell as Anita Hill
 * Danielle Taddei as Young Grace
 * Cade Courtly as Uniform Cop 1
 * Dirk Etchison as Uniform Cop 2
 * Kyra Oser as Generic High School Student

Production
Drive-Thru was written and directed by Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn. Cowles and Kuhn were two of the original organizers of the Slamdance Film Festival. Shane Kuhn received a master's degree in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute, but was relatively new to Hollywood, having previously written novels. After feeling unable to express his creativity the way he wanted to, he discontinued his work as a writer/director and returned to novel writing, as well as working in advertising and motion graphics. In an interview with Who Asked You?, Kuhn stated, "When I write a novel, the world is massive, the characters vivid, and there are almost no constraints. Screenwriting is constrained and technical. It’s very difficult to add deep layers to that kind of work. Movies are a directors’ medium, full stop. TV is different. Writers can live and breathe in that world, but not movies. You have a finite amount of time/pages and a very unforgiving story structure. Not to mention the fact that you might sell the damn thing only to have it sit on a shelf FOREVER. To me, screenwriting is like failing to follow Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory rules. It’s tempting, but a total waste of your golden ticket." On the contrary, Cowles continued to write several other screenplays after Drive-Thru, but did not direct any other films.

The writers of this film paid homage multiple times to John Carpenter's Halloween. Leighton Meester's character's name Mackenzie Carpenter is a clear reference to John Carpenter, in addition to a famous line spoken by Jamie Lee Curtis in the film ("Go down to the Mackenzie's and call the police.") Additionally, when Fisher comes into the room, there is a point-of-view shot which bears a heavy resemblance to the intro of Halloween, and he is then seen in blue coveralls similar to those worn by Michael Myers.

Vincent E. Toto was the cinematographer for Drive-Thru. The year before, he was the cinematographer for another horror film, Dark Ride, which received a similar audience response. The camera used for this film was a Panavision Panaflex Gold II.

Editing was done by Daniel R. Padgett, who has worked in the editorial department of many films of different genres, including The Royal Tenenbaums and Space Jam.

Filming
Drive-Thru was shot in Los Angeles, California.

Release
The film was released on DVD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on May 29, 2007 and in Canada by Maple Pictures at the same day.

Before Drive-Thru was released in the United States and Canada, it was released on DVD in Germany two months earlier, as well as being released on television in the UK on March 31, 2007. Besides these four 2007 releases, Drive-Thru went on to premiere in Mexico (May 2009) and Germany (May 2011).

Drive-Thru was released under several different titles depending on the country, such as Burger Kill (Canada and France), Fast Food Killer (Spain), and Death Burger (Japan). The USA working title of this film was Hellaburger.

Reception
Popcorn Pictures gave the film a negative review, writing "Really hard to sit through despite the promise of a killer clown, Drive Thru is eighty-three minutes of pure fast food junk. Like a fast food burger, it may look good when you pick it up but as soon as you take your first bite, you realize you’ve made a horrible mistake and all you’ve got left is an ultimately fatty concoction of things that are bad for your health."

Dread Central panned the film calling the film's dialogue "painfully bad" and criticized the film's ending.

DVD Talk called it "routine slice and dice dreariness", criticizing its inadequate humor, "callous characterization", and lack of actual scares.

Legacy
Drive-Thru continues to get the attention of horror film critics, having several film review articles and videos made about the film between 2019 and 2020. The film is often included in watch lists regarding killer clowns.

Drive-Thru was featured in two different episodes of Phelous & the Movies.