“Don’t blame me. You’re screwed up already.”

Drake’s rating: Ickiest. Hero. Ever.

Drake’s review: Crown International Pictures began life as an independent and foreign film distributor in 1959. Within a few years, however, they began production on their own features, starting with the Coleman Francis bad movie classic The Skydivers in 1963. From that point on their path was set, and they cranked out scads of low-budget flicks over the next three decades until going out of business in 1992 as the drive-in circuit died out.

But in the 1970’s drive-ins were still going strong, and so was Crown. And so was vansploitation.

“Wait,” I hear you ask. “What the heck is vansploitation?”

Well vansploitation, my friends, is a unique product of the 1970s. Vans had become quite popular in that decade, and van owners often took their customizations to the extreme. And I’m not just talking about Mag wheels and Frank Frazetta-style airbrushings, either. Shag carpets, massive stereo systems, mini-refrigerators, beds — all of these and more were crammed into vans in an attempt to make them the ultimate mobile makeout spot. It was enough of a fad to draw the attention of Hollywood, and a few movies specifically about vans made it to your local drive-in theaters. Thus, vansploitation.

The Van wasn’t the first of these movies, but it is the epitome of the genre. Subgenre. Sub-subgenre.

Bobby (Stuart Goetz) has one goal in life: to own a bitchin’ ‘70s van. If only all of our dreams were so grand. Saving the money from his car wash job, he finally makes the down-payment on a customized Dodge van, complete with fur upholstery, mirrored panels and a waterbed. Cue the end credits.

Oh, wait, we still have more movie? Well, darn it.

So the movie continues with Bobby driving his van and attempting to pick up girls. He also goes to a parking lot where a bunch of other vans are parked so we, the viewers, can live vicariously through Bobby’s experiences at what I’m going to call VanCon ‘77. He also fakes having sex in his van, spies on a girl in his van, and drags another girl into his van and threatens to drive over the edge of the road unless she listens to him.

Bobby is deranged, you guys. I don’t know if he was a hot mess before he bought the van or if the Dodge is possessed like Christine, but either way, Bobby really needs a serious intervention. Or a righteous butt kicking. Or both.

Getting on the bad side of local tough guy Dugan (Crown International mainstay Steve Oliver), Bobby winds up in a (and I can’t believe I’m typing this) van drag race, which ends exactly how you’d expect a van drag race to end: with both vans crashing. Dugan runs into a police car, while Bobby hits a high dirt embankment and flips his van in a cloud of dirt and dust.

And that’s when my Blu-ray player had finally had enough and spit out the movie, refusing to continue with this charade any longer. For several minutes I considered my predicament. Should I just make up an ending, one in which Bobby is sent to a psychiatric institute to receive the treatment he obviously needs while Dugan is celebrated as a hero for getting that menace off of the streets? Or should I contact Justin, since I know from his review of Jocks that he owns the same “Too Cool for School” DVD collection that I do, and that’s where I found The Van?

But no, I refuse to inflict this much ‘70s on Justin. He’s already making me review Hardbodies. I really, really don’t want to be forced to review Hardbodies 2.

Soldiering on, I recruited my far-less picky external DVD drive, hooked it up to my poor, overworked laptop, and managed to get through the last two minutes of the film. And it was worse than I thought. Bobby survives (although his waterbed doesn’t) and drives off with the girl he’d threatened earlier, while Dugan is left to take the fall.

Although I’m usually far more tolerant of the ‘70s than Justin is, I have to say that The Van encapsulates all the worst elements of that decade. Bad hair, worse clothes, casual misogyny, drunk driving, and general smarminess are all in full view here. And I’m telling you all this so that you, my friends, won’t make the same mistake I did and watch this movie. Like a good Mutant, I fell on my sword so that you all could remain unsullied by The Van and live happy, carefree lives. Revel in your bliss and think fondly of me, and spare yourself the nightmares of yellow vans, blue eye shadow and brown polyester pants.

And also Stuart Goetz’s butt. There’s just no coming back from that.

Intermission!

• A bug-eyed Sprite! The heck with a van, I want one of those!
• If you hate the “My Chevy Van” song, do not watch this movie. Ever.
• Yes, that is Danny DeVito. He went on to bigger & better things. And by that I mean everything else he ever did.
• A banana peel gag? Really, people. I expected better of you. I don’t know why, but I did.
• Stuart Goetz continued working in Hollywood as an in-demand music editor. Whether or not he currently owns a van is not public knowledge.
• Peeping at the pretty girl through binoculars. Our hero, everyone.
• Kidnapping and death threats? OK, Bobby should really be in jail by now.
• “I hate this van! I hate it!” Yup, I think we’re all in that camp by this point.
• Why couldn’t he have drowned inside his van? It would have been such poetic justice.