Dead End Drive-In
Dead End Drive-In is a 1986 film from Australia, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, running 87 minutes. reelscum files it under Ozploitation and post-nuke.
- Year
- 1986 · 1980s films
- Country
- Australia
- Runtime
- 87 min
- Director
- Brian Trenchard-Smith
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (51/100)
- Also known as
- Dead End · Dead End Drive In - OZ · Dead End Drive-In · Le Drive in de l'enfer
Defined in the glossary: Ozploitation, Post-nuke
A drive-in turned into an internment camp. The satire is not subtle.
A drive-in cinema that is secretly an internment camp for undesirable youth, who are content to stay so long as they have junk food, films and drugs. Brian Trenchard-Smith turns the premise into pointed satire about a society happy to be imprisoned as long as it is entertained.
Set in a near-future economic collapse and shot in gaudy neon, it is both a fun exploitation picture and a sharp piece of social commentary. The car stunts are, naturally, excellent.
Cleverer than it looks, and one of the more thoughtful late-Ozploitation films.
Trailer
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Where to watch
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Written about
- Ozploitation: the Australian genre boom, 1971 to 1986
An adults-only certificate, a tax loophole, and a Melbourne doctor who knew what happens to bodies at speed. Australia's fifteen years of cheap, mean, brilliant genre film.
The cycle in depth
- Wake in Fright is not an exploitation film
It was lost for thirty years, found in a bin marked 'for destruction', and it is the best thing on this site.
Filed alongside
Mad Max 2
The template the whole Italian post-nuke cycle copied for a decade.
Exterminators of the Year 3000
The Italian Road Warrior with sand instead of the Bronx, muscle car included.
Thirst
A secret society farms humans for blood. Ozploitation does vampires as corporate agribusiness.
Fair Game
A woman alone at an outback wildlife reserve is hunted by three kangaroo poachers. Lean and nasty.
Stone
Australia's outlaw-biker scripture. Mad Max drank from this tank.
Patrick
A man in a coma does telekinesis. Better than that sentence implies.
2020 Texas Gladiators
D'Amato and Eastman's Mad Max in a cowboy hat. Assembled entirely from better films.
Long Weekend
A couple litter, and Australia decides to kill them. Excellent.
Turkey Shoot
The budget vanished mid-shoot and they kept going. Chaotic, mean, fun.
Next of Kin
A slow-burn gothic in a nursing home. Much better than its obscurity suggests.
The Man from Hong Kong
Jimmy Wang Yu wrecks Sydney, with hang-gliding and a man actually on fire. Peak crossover.
Snapshot
A young model is stalked after a nude shoot. A slow-burn Australian thriller with a real sense of dread.