1978 Halloween movie marathon at MacArthur Drive-In in Orange, Texas

This newspaper advertisement (via Newspapers.com) was in the October 27, 1978, edition of The Orange Leader of Orange, Texas. It showcases a five-film Halloween movie lineup that was slated for the next night, Saturday, at the MacArthur Drive-In. It's an interesting slate that would have ended just a few hours before dawn, for those who stuck it out (or fell asleep in their cars).

Based upon movie lengths and allowing for about five-minute intermissions between movies, this is roughly when the movies would have started:

7:30 p.m. — The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972, PG)

9:05 p.m. — Return to Boggy Creek (1977, G)

10:35 p.m. — Nurse Sherri (1977, R)

12:10 a.m. — House of Psychotic Women (1976, R)

1:45 a.m. — The Mysterious Monsters (1975, G)

3:15 a.m. — It's over! Go home!

Children under age 12 were allowed to attend. I reckon the idea was that they'd have fallen asleep in the back seat by the time the R-rated films started, lest they see something that scars them for life.

The Legend of Boggy Creek is a super-low-budget, documentary-style horror film about an Arkansas cryptid that was fairly popular on the 1970s drive-in circuit. Parts of it served as an inspiration for The Blair Witch Project, decades later.

Its unauthorized sequel, Return to Boggy Creek, has nothing to do with the original and can barely be termed a horror movie. It's definitely the clunker of this MacArthur Drive-In lineup and was probably included because the licensing rights were dirt cheap. Of note, it features Gilligan's Island's Dawn Wells and Diff'rent Strokes' Dana Plato. One reviewer on IMDb called it "a movie that would make some Walt Disney movies look dark. Really, this movie was just a bunch of light fluff with virtually no boggy creek creature to be seen."

Nurse Sherri has a rating of 3.8 out of 10 on IMDb, so it was no prize either. But, in attempting to follow in the footsteps of The Exorcist, it probably had enough shocks, blood and titillation to keep the adults awake and eating popcorn from the snack bar. It also features the horror of this sofa; imagine that on a huge drive-in screen.

At first I was confused in attempting to research House of Psychotic Women, because that's also the title of a 2012 memoir/film studies book written by Kier-La Janisse. It's also the title of a themed collection of movies that Severin and Janisse teamed up to release a few years ago. Then I figured out that House of Psychotic Women is the title of the edited American release of the 1974 Spanish horror film Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, starring Paul Naschy. The American title served as the inspiration for Janisse's book title. Anyway ... Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll is definitely not a film you'd want your kids in the backseat to wake up during. They might catch an eyeful of eyeballs in a bowl of water, for one thing. 

Last up was The Mysterious Monsters. Its rating is incorrect in the advertisement. It's a G-rated documentary hosted by Peter Graves that discusses Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and other popular 1970s cryptids. It's fairly well-regarded, as that genre goes, but I can't imagine it was keeping many people awake that deep into the witching hour. Maybe it should have replaced Return to Boggy Creek as the second movie! 

I'd love to program a Halloween movie marathon for a group of horror fans. I think it would be more fun at an indoor theater, with quality picture, quality sound and no worries about weather or bugs. Maybe, after some ruminating, I'll do a post later this month about what movies I would include in such a marathon. And I'd love to hear in the comments what your dream Halloween movie marathon would be!

But drive-in theaters represented a wonderful time in the history of movies, too. And they definitely helped to further the horror genre through the 1970s. There's a Facebook page devoted to memories of the MacArthur Drive-In in Orange, Texas. According to that page, the drive-in opened in 1950 and, in January 1983, "slipped into history like most drive-ins."