Horror host Joe Bob Briggs says the drive-in will never die, and for another season, he’s not wrong. In a boon to mutants everywhere, Shudder has renewed Briggs’ popular series The Last Drive-In for a seventh season. Briggs announced the news himself on his Twitter account.
The Last Drive-In comes in the form of a specially curated horror movie (as Briggs says in the announcement, sometimes great, sometimes not-so-great, and sometimes horrible) interspersed with host segments from Briggs, co-host Darcy the Mail Girl (Diana Prince), and a variety of special guests. The announcement of season seven comes ahead of the season finale of The Last Drive-In‘s current season, its sixth. The finale will come in the form of the “Nightmareathon”, a six-movie extravaganza to cap off the season; it will begin on the night of August 30 and run into the wee hours of August 31. The Nightmareathon is already confirmed to feature guest appearances from fellow horror host Rhonda Shear, of USA Network’s Up All Night; Adrienne King, Friday the 13th‘s original “final girl”; and Felissa Rose, star of the infamous 1980s slasher Sleepaway Camp. The series has been a consistent ratings winner for horror streamer Shudder, and frequently trends on social media when it airs.
Who Is Joe Bob Briggs?
Joe Bob Briggs is the sex-and-violence-loving, beer-swilling, bolo-tie-wearing redneck stage persona of writer John Bloom. Following in the footsteps of contemporaries like Elvira and Svengoolie, he became a horror host; he presented Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel from 1986 to 1996, then moved to TNT to host Monstervision until 2000, which seemingly put an end to his horror hosting career. He was coaxed out of on-screen retirement in 2018 to host a thirteen-film marathon of horror movies on Shudder; it proved so popular that Shudder greenlit The Last Drive-In as a regular series. It has also spawned an annual convention and film festival, Joe Bob’s Jamboree. Outside of Shudder, Briggs has hosted The Last Drive-In specials for AMC’s Walking Dead spinoffs Dead City and Daryl Dixon, and hosted a special presentation of John Carpenter‘s original Halloween last October. He also served as a special guest judge for the Drag Race spinoff The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans.
The Last Drive-In featured a format change this season; while previous seasons featured intermittent double bills of horror fare, the sixth season ran bi-weekly for months on end, spotlighting a single movie the whole time. The end result had Briggs and Darcy hosting more than thirty films over the course of the season.
The Last Drive-In‘s season finale will air this weekend on Shudder; it will return for a seventh season at a later date. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
