User Reviews

"Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" appears to take place in a spotless netherworld, an era long gone by, where the biggest sin a kid could commit would be in defying the law and getting a traffic ticket. It opens with a young female auto fanatic getting the business from her arch rival, who pressures her into a car race. That's about it for the drag-racing--this B-flick is mostly concerned with rock 'n roll, man! The folks at American International were obviously fond of decent, square teens who liked to party and yet didn't mind an adult chaperone. There are a few amusing double entendres and fruity exchanges (Necking Kid: "We thought we'd come out for some fresh air"...Dad: "Where did you think you'd find it, down her throat?"), but the ghost is a little late in arriving. Brief at 65 minutes, the movie cheats us with a climactic car race that actually takes place off-screen and a pre-"Scooby Doo"-styled unmasking which makes no sense. However, for nostalgia buffs, some mindless fun. ** from ****

"Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" was one of the many '50s movies about hot-rodding teens encountering the supernatural. In this case, the teens can't pay the rent for their hangout and get evicted. With nowhere else to go, they decide on an apparently haunted house. As you may have guessed, once they arrive, some weird things start happening. And there's a twist at the end.

There's nothing in this movie that you haven't seen in other movies, but it's nice entertainment nonetheless. My favorite character was the foul-mouthed parrot. Well, let me rephrase that: he didn't talk like a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie, but he said things that we don't expect out of a bird. The movie's pure hokum, but harmless.

This is my all time favorite 50s drive-in flick! If youre researching the 1950s, then this is the film you want to see! Even during the dance party, there are two "guest monsters" from other 50s drive-in films...see if you can spot them! My favorite part of this film is the girl drag racer/mechanic! In the days when women working on their own cars or racing their own cars was a HUGE no-no, this gal gets to do it all...a true pioneer! The music, the cars, the costumes, the clothes and even the pajama party certainly adds fun and flavor to this funny, spooky classic! But, if you dont watch this film for any other reason, you have GOT to watch it for that smart-alecky talking *bird*!! He'll have you rolling with laughter!

This film is all about good music, good times and good fun. Nothing in it is to be taken too seriously man! At this time, Horror spook films seemed to be on the downward spin in terms of popularity but teen films about dancing, drag-racing and just being cool were just coming into fashion cat! But this one does feature a Monster(a Paul Blaisdell creation) and a ghost albeit all in the good spirits(ha!). Blaisdell actually has the funniest lines in the film. The Funest Man!

I saw this movie at a drive-in in 1959. Until "Howard the Duck" I considered this the worst movie I had ever seen. This movie tried to combine all the genera in one; comedy, horror, teenage angst, and the hot rod that must have sired "My Mother, The Car." Maybe it deserves a second viewing to see if it is an accurate reflection of it's time.

Any person who spouts the hoary maxim "they don't make them like they used to" has never bothered to delve into the really bad movies of the past. Yet a movie so silly is hard to hate. I mean, this was basically made to show in drive-ins. The teenagers in the audience probably weren't going there for the movie anyway. Actually a sequel to a movie called Hot Rod Gang, the movie attempted to appeal to kids with the promise of drag racing and ghosts. It delivers very little on those promises. There's a race right at the beginning. Another occurs near the end - off screen. The ghost is a Scoobie-Doo like guy who wants to scare the teenage protagonists away from their new gearhead clubhouse (the plot makes no sense whatsoever). The teens are the squarest imaginable. They don't want to break the law by drag racing - it happens sometimes, though. There's a lot of bopping to sub-par rock and roll. The chicks are cute - especially the really tall, nerdy one with glasses (dating the nerd, of course). They dance around in their nighties at one point. There is also a talking parrot, a talking car and a goofy spinster aunt. This is actually pretty high up on the list of the worst movies I've ever seen, but, like I said, it's so embarrassing that I can't help but have a bit of affection toward it.

Take all possible scenes that might occur in a 50s teen flick, mix them together, and you have the plot of "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow". This is perfect fare for a drive-in, where audiences paid little attention to the screen anyway.

There's beautiful teenager with a penchant for drag racing. There's a father who has concerns about the younger generation. A grandmother who likes to play the flute. Scenes of swing dancing and some really awful examples of guitar-driven rock-n-roll. Mix in a parrot that talks too much and a foursome that represent the bad element (Eric von Zipper's understudy?).

For no apparent reason, the action shifts to a supposedly haunted house, complete with things that revolve and things that cast large shadows. It's there that a talking car is revealed. And a highly-charged drag race occurs offscreen while the big ghost mystery is solved. Just in time for the big teen romance to...hey wait there's no resolution of boy and girl. Maybe it's because there never really was a conflict to resolve. Just harmless, campy fun in the suburbs.

This film is soooo corny, that it's incredibly funny!

Hardly shown any more, but don't miss it if you get the chance!

If anyone is looking for a copy of it, pls go to "Norm's Old Movie Heaven"

Released in 1959 and shot in B&W, "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" chronicles the events of a group of hot rod drag racers who are forced to move into a deserted mansion as their new headquarters, which appears to be haunted. To celebrate their new home and make money, they throw a Halloween costume party. The festivities are interrupted by a monster who's hogging the dances with the best-looking gals!

This is an eminently entertaining 50's hot rod/non-horror movie highlighted by petite cutie Jody Fair as the main protagonist and, believe it or not, one of the top hot rodders; not to mention the stunning statuesque beauty, Sanita Pelkey, who appears to be around 6'2". Several of the girls have a slumber party at one point. As for the "horror" shenanigans, they're essentially the blueprint for the Scooby Doo, Where Are You! cartoon, which debuted a decade later.

The film runs 65 minutes and was shot in Southern California.

GRADE: B

You have to wait 40 minutes before you hear the phrase "Dragstrip Hollow." Until that point (and even after), this film is a colossal bore.

After an opening scene of a drag race between two chicks, which is almost interesting, the film quickly bogs down into the trials and tribulations of a gang of kids who are about to be evicted from their hangout. I can't even tell you the names of most of the characters because I didn't care. One (slightly) recognizable face belongs to Russ Bender, only because I've seen him in a previous American International motorcycle flick. Yes folks, this film is from AIP, RIP. If you can stick around to the end, there is a good in-joke involving Paul Blaisdell, who created a lot of the creatures for AIP horror flicks.

One of the gang members is named Lois, and is played by Jody Fair. She's cute, and shows some acting talent. She drives a hot rod, and manages to stay mostly out of trouble. Her father is a square, but her mother seems hip. Lois' love interest, played by some guy, is uninteresting and sweats under his armpits quite a bit, judging by the shirt stains when he makes his first appearance onscreen. Jack Ging tries to play a tough guy, but he's only in a few scenes and has no bearing on anything - so why is he even in the film? I kept thinking this would have been a perfect part for John Ashley, but apparently this film was beneath even his borderline talent.

In the opening fifteen minutes, we get three songs, none of which I recall. There are a few others thrown in later, including one called "Geronimo." Clearly, this film needs to be shown during the next TCM "Native American Images in Film" festival. One song was written by future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston - unfortunately, I must have been napping when they played it.

In the midst of this tedium, Lois' aunt shows up. The aunt is played by the crone-like Dorothy Neumann. Neumann brings her parrot with her. The parrot gives the best performance in the movie, and has the best lines as well.

Lois' father: "Polly wanna cracker?" Bird: "What the hell would I do with a cracker?"

Lois' aunt: "Always say please." Bird: "Drop dead, please."

The gang eventually spend the night in a supposedly haunted house, where candles move and fireplaces swing around. Oh, I'm sooooooooooooo scared I may wet myself.

For much of the dialogue in this film, you may need subtitles. This late 1950s lingo is pretty foreign to me. "Somebody get this bag of bacteria lost." "He's got static in his attic." "Don't boil." "Put that thing down Dad before you clobber your clavicle." "Take your flippers off me, seal." "Man, you're cuttin' me down."

However, I did understand this exchange. After Lois' father spies too kids making out, the boy says "we thought we'd come out for a breath of fresh air." "Where did you think you'd find it?" asks Lois' father. "Down her throat?"

The worst soliloquy in the movie occurs early on, when a nerd tries to explain the principles behind his hotrod:

"You will be particularly interested in a theory I have evolved on the basic principles of locomotion, using of course the Euclidean system of mathematics and naturally interposing that with the Einstein theory of relativity. I have come up with proof positive of the transcendental nature of locomotion and combustion."

It's crap like this that makes kids hate math and science.

This is one of THE perfect "drive-in movies"! It's really "neat-o" to see the 50's as they actually WERE, not as TV shows like "Happy Days" pretends they were like!

This film abounds with humorous (& unintentionally humorous!) scenes; I guess you could say "it's so bad, it's GOOD"....er, GREAT!

The film brings back the hot-rodders, malt shops, & the twangy guitar music of the 50's.

The slumber-party scene was a "gas"! The Old Man goes outside and finds a couple doing some heavy necking. They quickly break up, and the boy says, "we were just going out for some 'fresh air', sir!", to which the old man replies, 'where did you think you'd find it? Down her THROAT?!".

Other amusing moments are ridiculous appearances of the "ghost" (wearing a costume right out of "She Demon"), and the "spook party"!

One amusing thing is the newspaper reporter saying (to the old man) "everything is so fast-paced today; kids have to grow up in a hurry, 'cos there might not BE a Tomorrow!" (Referring to the A-bomb). Kinda funny, when you consider those "idyllic times"!

It's a VERY rare film: Go see it, Daddy-o!

"Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" is a very typical sort of offering from American-International Pictures. This is because the emphasis is on fun-loving teens and the generation gap...common themes is most AIP films from the 1950s and 60s. However the whole ghost angle is nearly impossible to see until very late in the story....and there's a monster as well which seems to come from out of no where!!

The story is about a hot rod club which is very wholesome. They are strictly against street racing and are about as clean cut as possible. The only exception is Lois...a pretty 'teen' who just can't seem to control her impulse to speed. As for Lois, her daddy is a real weirdo with a really creepy fascination with teenage girls! You just have to see this old lech in action to believe him! As for plot....well there isn't very much but eventually there's a haunted house for absolutely no discernible reason!

The writing in this film seems squarely aimed at teens and the very easily impressed...or perhaps teens who go to drive-ins to make out, as the writing is pretty bad. A few of the dopey aspects of the film include: a parrot with a larger vocabulary than most English professors, the 'smart' guy who wears glasses and speaks in mostly gibberish, some terrible rear projection of the 'wacky' driving by the old aunt and more. The movie clearly doesn't try very hard and it never was intended as great art! In fact, it's often pretty bad.

By the way, like nearly all films with teens of the day, this one features actors well in their 20s playing these parts. Lois was supposed to be about 16...and the actress playing her was 25. In another film, "Teenagers from Outer Space", the teens seem about 30 or older! What's with all these long in the tooth teens?!

From what I understand the "Hot Rod movies" of the 50's were pretty much on the decline once the "Beach movies" began appearing in the early 60's. Of course that doesn't mean none were made but their popularity had definitely waned. That said, this rather lackluster film probably didn't help matters. Be that as it may, this movie begins with a hot rod race between two young women which results in one of the racers crashing her car and although she is not injured she receives a ticket on top of everything else. The other young lady named "Lois Cavendish" (Jody Fair) escapes-at least for the time being. In any case, she then drives back to the garage that her hot rod club is temporarily using and finds out that they are being evicted due to a lack of funds. So after much singing and dancing the decision is eventually reached to relocate to the house belonging to Lois' aunt which she has been unable to sell. There's only one problem-the house is haunted. At any rate, rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that I happen to enjoy movies made during this particular era. Unfortunately, this was one of the worst comedies I have seen in quite a while. All of the jokes either fell flat or were awfully corny. Sometimes both. Likewise, there wasn't much action to be had either. In short, other than having a couple of cute actresses like Elaine DuPont (as "Rhoda") and the aforementioned Jody Fair, this movie had very little going for it and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is not the spooky film you would think it is. The film is about a group of greasers looking for a new clubhouse. They end up moving their club to a supposed haunted house. The house is haunted but most of the movie takes place at the first club and at the main girl's house where there is a party. This movie has it all: racing, 1950s teenage lingo, a wisecracking parrot and a blink and you'll miss it ghost. The parrot steals the show. It is fun and entertaining, just not what I was expecting.

Jody Fair plays hot-rodder Lois Cavendish, member of the Zenith club, a group of swell teens into souped-up cars and swinging sounds, who set-up shop in a creepy mansion after being evicted from their clubhouse. To raise some funds, the kids organise a fancy-dress Halloween bash, unaware that there is an imposter among them: a real monster!

A spoof of monster and drag-racing movies, American International's Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is a wild movie, featuring a collection of oddball characters, a kookie premise, lots of rock and roll and a whole heap of zany comedy. I found it all a bit TOO goofy at times - there's a parrot that quotes Shakespeare, a talking car, and a crazy old aunt who drives like a loony - but at the same time, it's such a good-natured film that it's hard to be too scathing, even if it didn't really razz my berries.

The scenes in the haunted house will be of particular interest to fans of monster B-movies, for it features a slightly altered version of the monster from The She-Creature (1956), and ends with a cameo from the man who designed and constructed the suit, Paul Blaisdell.

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for the slumber party (baby doll nighties-ville!) and for hot 'nerdy' girl Amelia (Sanita Pelkey).

N. B. I now know where Rob Grant and Doug Naylor got the inspiration for Tongue Tied, the song sung by Cat (Danny John-Jules) in the Red Dwarf episode 'Parallel Universe'.

This is actually kinda a sequel to "Hot Rod Gang" released a year earlier with some of the same characters played by the same people. My favorite scene is when the boy brings the girl home and she wants to make out before she gets out and out of nowhere ( never been mentioned earlier in the movie) he says "well, gotta go now: it's Labor Day tomorrow". I taped this movie off the TV several years ago and am glad that I dd because they never play it in this area anymore. Probably because it's in black & white. The theme song music was used in another movie called "Invasion of the Star Creatures" that seems to have disappeared into oblivion.

Sure, it's light, but it's a great parody of teen films, car flicks, and monster movies! The writing is sharp and the dialog had me laughing out loud repeatedly.

Attempting to gather funds for their club, a group of teenage hot- rodders trying to hold a Halloween-themed dance party in a remote mansion finds the location has been haunted by a series of strange ghosts and spirits forcing them to find a way to keep the party going.

This here was quite the disappointing horror effort overall. One of the film's biggest issues is the fact that so many of the elements that appeal to the teenagers of the time are just utterly bland and boring. The main focus here is on the exploits of the club and how the reporters' interview of the group members really for the first half of the film as listening to them talk about cars, engage in insipid dancing scenes or go through their rivalry with the other delinquent group just makes this go by so slowly. On top of that, the scenes of the girls' slumber party of the exhaustive musical numbers sung throughout their numerous dance parties which just not only eats up time here but really highlights the other big flaw in this one which is the incessant need for the youth culture appeal that really doesn't make this one all that interesting. This focus on the youth culture rather than bringing on the horror really lowers the interest of the film as well as causes the last big problem in bringing on such an excruciating first half for the film that it takes nearly fifty minutes before they even arrive at the house which doesn't leave much time to really exploit the horror stylings which is due to these elements have attempting to appeal to that mindset. That also turns into the reasoning why this one ends as abruptly as it does since this takes place in the middle of the party and letting the band play on seems like the higher priority, all at the expense of the horror. These here are what really hold this one back even with a few rather decent positives. One of the better features here is the solid car-racing on display which offers some great action here with the solid opening race to get this one going off nicely and the rather fun if cheesy car antics throughout the latter half which is rather nice at keeping this one rather enjoyable. The other really big plus here is the film's cheesy and somewhat fun last half in the house itself, as the antics with the haunted house tropes of cackling creatures and revolving doors that let the creatures loose to torment the group are chilling in concept yet still rather comedic scare tactics that continues on into the party as the creatures crash the dance and get involved in rather silly manners. It may not appeal to all out there, but is something to like with this one.

Rated Unrated/PG: Mild Violence.