It’s a shame that the drive-in is all but extinct, since two of this week’s releases would’ve been perfect fodder for the format; you could make out with your date throughout either movie and not miss a thing. First up is On the Line, a romantic comedy starring two members of ‘N Sync, a band so absurdly clean-cut, they make the Monkees look like Black Sabbath. Then there’s Bones, which blends blaxploitation cool and bloody gore in the tradition of Blacula and Tales from the Hood. At least that’s what the video box will say – and it won’t be long until this half-camp, half-crap spooker hits your local renter’s shelves.

Snoop Doggy Dogg is Bones – Jimmy Bones, a benevolent gangster best known for dressing to the nines and looking out for his fellow man. Actually, was might be a more appropriate description, since Bones disappeared back in 1979, shortly before his neighborhood was overrun by crack, crime, and poverty. The only trace of the legend is the hustler’s towering brownstone, whose Gothic spires dominate its blighted block in an unnamed ghetto. Oh yeah, it’s also Bones’ final resting place, and his angry spirit eviscerates anyone foolhardy enough to set foot inside.

Enter four clueless teens – mixed-race brothers Patrick (Khalil Kain) and Bill (Merwin Mondesir), their white stepsister Tia (Katherine Isabelle), and their half-Hispanic friend Maurice (Sean Amsig) – who, by some stroke of luck and parental unawareness, buy Bones’ brownstone in order to turn in into an after-hours dance joint. But having two turntables and a microphone on top of his tomb doesn’t sit well with Jimmy, who awakes to wreak his revenge.

Bones’ story is pretty standard horror stuff, and screenwriters Adam Simon (Carnosaur) and Tim Metcalfe (Revenge of the Nerds) never clarify how four adolescents (who still live at home) are able to buy, run, live in, and obtain a liquor license for a club. They also don’t explain why the quartet think nothing of a body in the basement, blood oozing from the plumbing (“It’s just rust!”), and a black wolf with glowing red eyes running around the place.

But the obligatory idiocy of the protagonists amuses as much as it annoys, especially when one of them takes a bite out of some possessed pizza riddled with maggots. Simon and Metcalfe’s script has a few glimmers of intelligence too, including some asides about mixed-racial identity and the Clarence Thomas-ian rants of Patrick and Bill’s conservative African-American father (the ever-versatile Clifton Powell). There are even a few verbal zingers, including a coked-up drug dealer’s threat – “I’ll burn your asses and snort your ashes!” – which are classics.

Bones was directed by Ernest Dickerson, who is famous for being Spike Lee’s cinematographer and infamous for churning out so-so B-movies and telepics like Bulletproof and Futuresport. But despite some innovative visual tricks like the super-saturated 16mm opening sequence or Bones’ early manifestations as a barely visible phantasm, Dickerson’s latest is no great shakes. Besides the radiant Pam Grier, who looks Coffy-esque in flashback scenes as Bones’ girlfriend, only Dogg stands out. With a skinny physique that’s straight out of a German expressionist film, the rapper is physically perfect for the role. He also oozes a laid-back cool that’s tailor-made for the suave Bones (or, more likely, the other way around), and his rendition of James Brown’s “The Big Payback” – Bones’ theme song – is surprisingly bumpin’. It’s just the sort of track you’d play in your car on the way to the drive-in – if there were any left to go to.