Four movies deep and 20 degrees down, my brother and I were the last ones left at the Aut-O-Rama Twin. The only other survivor \u2014 a hardy family piled in and around a pickup truck \u2014 must\u2019ve bailed while I was in the bathroom. When I shambled out of the brick bunker, under the red humming MEN\u2019S sign, there was just a familiar Chevy out in the dark.<\/p>\n
The cold already found the cracks in my well-meaning, woefully inadequate armor. It was around three on a late October morning, but that was no excuse for a temperature faltering in the upper teens. My Pendleton sweater and worn-out jeans were only fashion statements by the time my feet touched gravel.<\/span><\/p>\n We parked near the front, naturally, because drive-ins play by different rules than theaters. It helped that my brother and I\u00a0 <\/span>approached the annual Halloween horror marathon as we did all drive-in excursions, with delirious, often detrimental zeal. Park as close to the screen as possible. But it\u2019s a long walk to the concession shack and, at best, 35 degrees. No worries, though, \u2018cause that\u2019s what the bottomless fresh-brewed coffee (great by drive-in standards and good by any others) is for, even if we have to trek through the cold to get it in the first place. And you best believe we still got ice cream between movies two and three on principle.<\/span><\/p>\n But by the closing minutes of the last leg, the coffee was gone and everything warm was locked up but the bathroom. All that remained was our car, the monolithic screen, and me, staggering over the lunar surface of our local drive-in.<\/span><\/p>\n Then came the snow. Nothing heavy. I only noticed it in the projector\u2019s unblinking eye.<\/span><\/p>\n Then muffled screams of a madman. Louder as I marched the last few rows to the car. Fighting the stringy sounds of an orchestra about to witness a murder. Interrupted with a shout.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDanny Boy!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I stopped and looked at the screen.<\/span><\/p>\n Jack Nicholson was huffing and puffing and stalking his son with an ax through that frostbitten hedge maze. There couldn\u2019t have been more than a few minutes left.<\/span><\/p>\n I watched him shiver, alone, severed from the natural world, and wondered when I\u2019d crossed my arms like his.<\/span><\/p>\n For a chilling moment, as the only sign of life at the Aut-O-Rama Twin, in the godforsaken hours of an October morning, shaking from the cold, I was in The Shining.<\/i> And that\u2019s why my heart will always belong to the drive-in.<\/span><\/p>\n Modern movie theaters are designed like sensory deprivation tanks. Sound systems that intelligently scatter hundreds of channels to a dozen speakers. Better recliners than most people have in their homes. Excepting the human element, theaters are built toward one purpose: showing movies, distraction-free.<\/span><\/p>\n But drive-ins are <\/i>distraction. That unseasonable breeze. Applauding honks from passing semis on the interstate. Rear-view mirror peeks of the double feature playing across the lot. Listening to the crickets on your way to the concession shack. You can even fiddle with your phone and yell at your friends with reckless abandon. Drive-ins share as much DNA with the multiplex as a summertime bonfire.<\/span><\/p>\n Drive-ins began as a means to get people out of the house but not out of their shiny new cabriolets. As a car-parts salesman in the 1930s, Richard Hollingshead watched America fall in love with its automobiles in real time. Contemporary surveys<\/a> told it best: The general public cared more about their cars than houses, telephones, basic hygiene or electricity. So when Hollingshead started rigging up a sheet between two trees in his driveway for his plus-sized mother<\/a> to watch movies away from the cramped grindhouses, it didn\u2019t take long for him to patent the idea.<\/span><\/p>\n