Video Dungeon Theatre: Drive and The Driver Double Feature

There’s no better way to get out of the house and still beat the heat than a summer evening double feature, and Video Dungeon Theatre’s got you, fam. For its next screening, they’ve got cars on the mind, but this is no celebration of the “Great American Road Trip.” Instead, the Dungeoneers are putting the pedal to the metal with a double whammy of ultraviolent heist flicks. First on the docket is Drive, the Ryan Gosling vehicle that nabbed Nicolas Winding Refn the 2011 Best Director Award at Cannes. Defined by its iconic imagery, most notably Gosling’s scorpion silk jacket, Drive’s brutally violent star-studded story of heist and betrayal foreshadows Refn’s eventual pivot to horror with 2016’s The Neon Demon. Believe it or not, though, Gosling isn’t the first A-list actor to play an unnamed Driver in a thrilling role that plays against his boyish good looks. That honor actually belongs to Ryan O’Neal, whom you may remember from ‘70s hits like Love Story, Paper Moon or Barry Lyndon. O’Neal’s Driver is engaged in a cat and mouse game with a wily Detective, and while the body count of this film rivals Drive, it doesn’t hold a candle to the casual brutality populating the newer film. It’s no wonder, then, that the 1978 classic is closing out the night.