Joe Bob Briggs’ next series will focus on “forgotten films” from decades past

Earlier this year, legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs had to break some bad news to his fans: the Shudder streaming service had cancelled his show The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs. But there’s a silver lining here, as not only had Shudder commissioned Joe Bob to shoot a handful of specials that will air through the rest of the year – but as of January 1st, he’s a free agent who’ll be able to take his movie-hosting talents anywhere. One week after the Last Drive-in series finale, Joe Bob let us know that he was already weighing the options for another TV show – and now, Fangoria has learned that Joe Bob is planning for his new show to focus on forgotten films from decades past!

Joe Bob Briggs

Joe Bob Briggs made his debut as a drive-in movie critic in the early ’80s and soon earned a job hosting movies on The Movie Channel, where Joe Bob’s Drive-in Theater ran from 1986 to 1996. That was followed by the TNT series MonsterVision, which he hosted from 1996 to 2000.

That was followed by an eighteen-year stretch of darkness, but then he made his triumphant return with The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder. The Shudder era began with a 13-film marathon on July 13, 2018 – an event that Joe Bob thought might be his last rodeo. But so many people tuned in for that marathon, it crashed Shudder’s servers and convinced them to give him an on-going series, mixed with holiday specials.

On The Last Drive-In, the world’s foremost drive-in movie critic hosts eclectic horror movies, talking about their merits, histories and significance to genre cinema. The show is produced by Matt Manjourides and Justin Martell and directed by Austin Jennings. Joe Bob is joined on every episode by Diana Prince as Darcy the Mail Girl.

What’s Next?

Joe Bob was recently in Austin, Texas to host a theatrical double feature billed as Satan’s Workshop. Fangoria reports that he told the audience that this event was intended to test out potential movies for his new show. He said, “We care about your opinions here. We’re both gonna study your faces, your bodies and your involuntary skeletal language in order to see whether these movies are having any impact on you. We don’t care whether you’re loving the movie or hating the movie. We do care whether or not the movie is boring you.“

The movies shown that night were Raphael Nussbaum’s 1973 film Pets, followed by Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance from 1987. Neither of those are horror movies, but they are “underseen genre offerings of differing sorts.” Joe Bob said, “What we’re looking for with Satan’s Workshop are films we can use on our new show that are not shop-worn. Now, what I mean by that is, Plan 9 from Outer Space is a lot of fun, but it’s shop-worn. The Baby…one of my favorite of all the films we hosted on Shudder is not shop-worn. It’s just as shocking today as it was in 1973.“

Noting that “the sweet spot for forgotten cult movies is 1969 to 1977,” Joe Bob added, “The most exciting stuff we did (on The Last Drive-in) were forgotten films, or undiscovered films, or neglected films, or films that people did see years ago but their appeal has done a 180.” So his vision for his next series is for it to “be all about forgotten stuff, rather than beloved horror classics.” He even referenced Showgirls as an example of a “forgotten film” that would be fitting for the show.

While The Last Drive-in was, with few exceptions, a horror show, The Movie Channel and TNT did have Joe Bob hosting a variety of genres back in the day, so I would love to see him get a chance to cover a wide range of “forgotten films” in his next show. Does this sound like an interesting approach to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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