(1959 American-International Pictures)  Director:  William Hole Starring:  Jody Fair, Russ Bender, Henry McCann, Martin Braddock

I love horror films.....

...and I love juvie hot rod flicks almost as much.  For the uninformed, a "hot rod flick" is a film that was part of a sub-genre that grew outta the 1950s boom of juvenile deliquent or "JD" films, generally depicting teenagers with bad attitudes in trouble with authority figures, and the hot-rod flick was basically that....only add customized cars and some sort of dragstrip or street racing (usually of the illegal sort) into the mix. Imagine 2 Fast 2 Furious....only slower.    And with a plot that doesn't seem like it was composed by three retarded chimps at three typewriters with broken tab keys.  You'll get the idea.  Add a liberal dose of then current rockabilly tunes to the soundtrack (or incidental music that sounds remotely like it)...and HKC is a happy boy.

So....Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow sounds as if it'd be tailor made for this reviewer, right?  Well...there are few complaints.  The flick is an enjoyable venture into cinematic cheese, but there are a few things about it that just annoy the hell outta me. The plot:  A group of good natured crazy hepcats and kittens (you can tell they're hip...just listen to all that kooky dialouge, dad.  It's the swingingest!), all members of a hot rod appreciation society in their hometown, are all sadsville, my man, because, like...the Man is pushing on 'em hard because of a few of their membership's need for a lead foot (Jody Fair, who looks about 10 years too old to be a high schooler, whose short list of credits include The Brain Eaters and Sex Kittens Go To College) and the fact that they're gettin' evicted from their clubhouse/garage/greaseyspoon diner.  I wonder what rent on something like that was?  Hell...I couldn't afford gas for a car most times when Iw as in high school,much less a swingin' pad like that.

SPOOOOO-KY, eh?  I thought so, too.

They're helped out along the way by the kindly reporter who's documenting they're antics for a local paper and Anastasia Abernathy,  (Dorothy Neumann, whose resume is astounding) a crazy as a loon old biddy who owns a supposed haunted house that Lois' father, a realtor, cannot sell.  Added for "komic" relief is said old bat and her "talking" parrot.  This gig gets annoying about three seconds after their introduction into the proceedings.  The kids make a deal with Anastasia...they exorcize the house,  and they can use it for their new hot roddin' digs.

The gang spends a spook filled night in the old trap, where we finally meet the supposed "ghost" of the picture: A Monster-In-A-Suit..that looks a hell of alot like The She-Creature.  The monster does the usual comic monster things to scare the teens, after which they decide to throw a costume party, where we learn that really bad instrumental electric surf guitar novelty tunes are an effective ghost repellant.  Now, this is where the film suddenly takes a turn to the truly odd.

During the proceedings, Monster-In-A-Suit shows up and crashes the party, but no one takes notice because...duh....it's a masquerade. When the nerdy kid reveals his newest scientific accomplishment, a hep-talking jalopy that seems to have been a prototype for KITT from Knight Rider,only not half as amusing, the gang discover the secret hideout of the creature and pull a Scooby Doo style ending, unmasking the perp to reveal....Paul Blaisdell: AIP special effects man.  Suddenly...the film not only "winks" at the audience and acknowledges it's a movie...it surely does it in a fairly atypical fashion, throwing this fact at us right at the very end of the picture.  It's slightly disorienting none the least.  The End, So...what's not to like?  Well...it's the "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow"...not a bunch of whiney teens in search of a new clubhouse.  I expected more spooks, ya know...not the She Creature, who doesn't show up until a fair amount of time into the flick, even.  Then add terrible "musical acts" like AIP no-hit wonder Jimmy Madden, who sounds like a drunken Burl Ives in his only film role and guitarist Bruce Johnston (his credits are almost as strange as Neumann's) and his incredibly bad surf guitar band.  I enjoyed it on a "it's goofier than hell" level...but was expecting more, I guess.