It was like 1953 all over again at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds Saturday night.
Couples snuggled in blankets on the grass and children munched popcorn in lawn chairs as old-fashioned 16-mm reel-to-reel film projectors whirred and Woody the Woodpecker huh-huh-huhed on screen.
Welcome to the first season of the fair's "Movies Under the Stars" outdoor cinema series on the Saloon Stage between Chehalis and Centralia.
The main attraction was the spooky stylings of Vincent Price, who played a deranged artist in "House of Wax."
Andy Sobel of Centralia attended many outdoor movies while living in New York. He said watching a movie with other people is better than watching a DVD at home.
"Here you have a communal experience. It's a shared reaction," Sobel said.
Although the evening's choice was a horror movie, organizer Pat Slusher Jr. said it still qualified as G-rated.
He pledged to show family movies only. Many attendees are parents with their children, he said.
"It's like watching a movie in your back yard. That's what we're shooting for," said Slusher, the marketing director for the Southwest Washington Fair.
The fair doesn't expect to make money on the movies, which cost $5 for one adult and two children. They are designed as an interim event so the public can use the fairgrounds, Slusher said.
He played the chatty host as dusk approached, walking the grass with a microphone and giving out prizes.
The first reel started at 9:15, when it was dark enough to see the cartoon on the big screen.
The projectionist was brought in from Olympia. He had decades of experience working in drive-in theaters, which are now all but gone from the landscape.
In fact, the former Twin City Drive-In, now growing up into trees and brush, was only a few hundred yards away.
Slusher said the outdoor cinema movement is really a direct heir to drive-in movies.
"This is basically the modern-day version of the drive-in. Because the drive-ins are gone, this is what's sprung up."
Jim Anderson of Centralia brought his daughter Payton, 10, and her friend Rennie Windham, also 10, for some family time.
He compared the outdoor movies to Friday's Music in the Park, which brought a Southern rock cover band to downtown Centralia.
"It'd be neat if these things caught on. That Music in the Park was awesome," Anderson said.
The movie didn't exactly excite the two girls.
They were more impressed with a bloodier modern remake of "House of Wax" with Paris Hilton.
"I think the new 'House of Wax' is better," Payton said. "It's more scarier."
Her father remembers having the same reaction a generation ago.
"They don't know about Vincent Price," he said. "When I was a kid, he was scary."
Coming up
A Bob Hope-Bing Crosby movie will be shown Aug. 6. A number of unusual comedies will be shown Sept. 10 at a mini-film festival.
