Six times Joe Bob and Darcy slayed it on The Last Drive-In
By Carla Davis
Sometimes, things get emotional on The Last Drive-In, and our next two awards take us from tears to cheers.
The Tearjerker award goes to Joe Bob’s Red Christmas, Joe Bob’s December 2019 special, which was very special indeed. I may be a bit biased towards this one, because the original Black Christmas was the horror movie that made me love horror movies. I saw it when I was a sweet, impressionable 11-year-old girl, and it still blows me away every time I watch it.
It is sometimes referred to as the first slasher (although many people decry that claim), and it definitely inspired John Carpenter’s Halloween. Black Christmas is proof positive that a movie doesn’t have to be gory to be scary.
The other two films shown on this special are Jack Frost and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, so you get some bloody, campy stories to balance out the very dark content in Black Christmas. But, what makes this one stand out are the cast interactions.
The shtick during this special is that Joe Bob was planning a big party for a bunch of popular horror hosts, and one by one, they cancelled. So, Joe Bob was down in the dumps, and told Darcy that they need to each follow the “holiday tradition” of telling a sad story.
These stories are very real, and very touching, and it feels like the two of them are sort of taking off their character masks for a bit. Joe Bob tells a story about being so broke that he couldn’t afford bus fare for a much-needed audition, and Diana/Darcy gives us the tale of how she got her first gig as an exotic dancer, which gave her much-needed money to support herself and her son after she left an abusive relationship. It was truly a special segment, and despite the fact that their stories were indeed very sad, it felt appropriate for the holiday season.