The plot revolves around the titular Ruby, a woman in the 50s who wanted to become a singer. She is happily in a relationship with a mobster named Nicky, but her previous lover becomes jealous. He and the other mobsters rub Nicky out by shooting him to death at the dock of the swamp where she lives, but they spare her. The group goes into hiding and Ruby opens up a drive in theater to "go straight" and make legitimate money while lying low. However, the mobsters who now work at the drive in start to get mysteriously murdered one at a time and it looks like Nicky didn't stay dead.
Tropes included in this work are:
- Abusive Parent: Only verbally, but Ruby’s drunken spells often mean she screams at Leslie or at Vince or at anyone around due to her short temper and alcoholism.
- Age-Gap Romance: The mobster that Ruby was with that got jealous of Nicky is significantly older than her and wheelchair bound when the stories resumes in the current timeline. It’s a little weird since the actress playing Ruby looks to only be in her forties and all the other mobsters aren’t nearly as old as him.
- The Alcoholic: Ruby drinks heavily to deal with her Survivor Guilt. She even gets drunk and drives down to the drive in theater to beg her dead lover to forgive her.
- Alternate DVD Commentary: Done by Rifftrax in 2016.
- Asshole Victim: All of the mobsters Nicky kills. And honestly, Ruby too.
- Attempted Rape: One of the drive-in's frequent customers is a Southern Belle-type girl who apparently sleeps with any man who is willing to buy her things. One of the mobsters tries to get intimate with her, but he’s at least twice her age and she rebuffs him even though she led him on at first (to be fair, she just wanted the gift he promised her and to maybe kiss a little, not have sex with him out in the woods) so he tries to force himself on her only to be stopped by a well-deserved kick to the groin. He’s then finished off by Nicky’s ghost beating him to death and leaving his body propped up in a tree, which poor little Leslie finds the next morning.
- Ax-Crazy: Ruby, by the end of the film. She basically suffers a slow Sanity Slippage when Nicky’s ghost comes back to haunt her and kill his murderers off, but the reveal that she cut out her lover’s eyes and kept them preserved in a jar shows she was possibly crazy all along.
- B-Movie: And how. The main lead is absolutely devouring the scenery in every scene she’s in, the plot's melodramatic as hell, the effects are hilariously cheap, and it is not even remotely scary at any point. They also go out of their way to rip off a scene from The Exorcist in an attempt to be scary.
- The Bad Guy Wins: All of the conspirators who killed Nicky get whacked and then he finally drags Ruby down into the swamp (albeit in a hastily reshot ending) to die with him. However, at least Vince, Paul, and Leslie (the only truly decent folks, though Vince is a party to some unsavory stuff) make it out alive in the end.
- Bittersweet Ending: Paul and Vince escape Nicky’s wrath and are able to finally get him to stop possessing the innocent Leslie, but Ruby gives herself over to Nicky and drowns to death in the swamp.
- Chewing the Scenery: The main actress, Piper Laurie, must have had floss on hand to get bits of the set out of her teeth in every scene.
- Covers Always Lie: Due to the positioning of Leslie as the larger character portrayed in some of the movie posters, some people mistakenly thought she was the titular Ruby. Turns out Ruby is the character below her on the poster, played by Piper Laurie.
- Death by Materialism: Narrowly avoided by the Southern Belle character who goes into the woods with one of the mobsters. When he assaults her, she kicks him in the nuts and then runs away, and her timing is fortunate since Nicky's ghost kills him scarcely a minute after she escapes.
- Demonic Possession: By a ghost, though, not a demon. Nicky comes back from the dead to kill all his murderers and possess his daughter Leslie to finish off Ruby and the shrink.
- Drive-In Theater: The movie is mostly set around the one that Ruby owns, with occasional trips back to her house where she, Vince, and Leslie live along with her decrepit old lover.
- Evil Matriarch: Ruby is borderline. She was once a singer, but after the criminals she worked with killed her lover Nicky, they all decided to “go straight” by opening a drive in theater. The mobsters all work there and she owns it, keeping them in check in the meantime as well.
- The '50s: The movie does a fairly decent job at recreating the decade, but the only problem is the year they set the movie is before the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman came out, so there is no way it would be playing at that drive in theater.
- Groin Attack: The jerk mobster who tries to molest the girl at the drive in is finally dispatched with a well-aimed kick to the nads.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Leslie. She can’t speak, but she does seem to be a very sweet little girl, though she may have a case of Hollywood Autism, but it’s ambiguous.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Ruby flies into rage over anything, no matter how harmless.
- Hollywood Autism: Subjective, but Leslie is mute after Ruby suffered an injury while pregnant with her, but the way she behaves is similar to some manifestations of autism.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: One of the mobsters Nicky gets revenge on is flown up to one of the drive in theater screens and impaled by one of the listening devices.
- Informed Attractiveness: Ruby’s actress isn’t ugly by any stretch, but she does behave as if she’s a supermodel and she’s…definitely not.
- Informed Attribute: Ruby is always talking about her one shot at fame when she used to be a singer. Eventually, we do get to hear her sing on an old recording and it’s…average at best. She seems to think she would have made it big time had they not all gone into hiding after the mobsters killed Nicky.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Leslie has rather large blue eyes and usually looks spaced out.
- Jerkass: The mobsters, but Ruby counts as well. Sure, she had a traumatic past, but becoming a verbally abusive alcoholic who hides bodies isn't kosher even with that traumatic past.
- Lady in Red: Ruby decided to take her name very literally, as she has red hair and is almost always seen wearing red and always in over the top outfits that make no sense since she’s essentially a shut-in who dresses up seemingly just for her own vanity. She is wearing a very revealing red formal gown when she gives herself over to Nicky and drowns in the swamp.
- Large Ham: Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. She has only two emotions: terror and bottomless rage.
- Makeout Point: The teens naturally go to the drive in to feel each other up and makeout, though some of them are shown actually watching the movie.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Played straight until the last scene where Nicky drags Ruby to the bottom of the swamp to drown. She is the only female character to die in the film.
- Never My Fault: Ruby insists that the plot to kill her lover wasn’t her fault and she didn’t know about it in advance. The movie doesn’t really specify if she’s lying or not, but she seems to have genuinely loved him, but naturally his ghost doesn’t care either way; he still got murdered and thrown into a swamp by his old partners.
- Nice Guy: Both Vince and the psychiatrist Paul are much, much nicer and understanding than Ruby. Vince admits to a crush on her and they seem to be Friends with Benefits on occasion whenever Ruby gets lonely, but he does genuinely love her daughter Leslie and has been raising her as his own. Paul also genuinely wants to help Leslie resist possession by her father’s ghost.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: All of the mobsters who shot Nicky to death are revealed the next day or next scene by various people finding their bodies.
- Police Are Useless: Acknowledged. Ruby, Vince, and the mobsters went into hiding after Nicky’s murder, so once the first dead mobster shows up, Ruby does not want to call the cops. They instead quietly dump each of the bodies in the swamp with weights so no one will ever find them. The movie, however, doesn’t care to explain if anyone in the town notices they’ve disappeared, so we presume Ruby lies and says they all skipped town.
- The Queenpin: Ruby Claire could be considered akin to a Queenpin, albeit on a smaller scale.
- The Reveal: The mobster who Ruby was supposed to be with instead of Nicky has now reached elderly age and is just barely kept alive by Vince in her home. He is later murdered and it’s shown that Ruby cut out his eyes after he facilitated Nicky’s murder, which is why he is always wearing those sunglasses.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Nicky’s ghost returns to kill his murderers and to take back “his” child Leslie, whom he starts possessing.
- Sanity Slippage: Nicky outright kills the men responsible for his death, but mostly just taunts Ruby for most of the film. Ruby was already a few knives short of a cutlery and gets more insane with every haunting until she eventually just surrenders and lets him drag her to the bottom of the swamp.
- Say My Name: If you took a shot every time Ruby says "Nicky," you'd die of alcohol poisoning before finishing the first act of this film.
- Small Name, Big Ego: In-universe, Ruby seems to think she would’ve been a worldwide sensation if her album had a chance to make it on air waves, but after Nicky’s murder, they all went into hiding and started the drive in theater to “go straight” so no one would put two and two together about them all.
- Surprise Incest: To the audience, not in-universe. Ruby thinks she hears Nicky calling to her, so she goes up to the attic. She finds Leslie there possessed by her father’s ghost and he taunts her the way he would if he were in his actual body, not in his daughter’s body, even touching Ruby in a sexual way. It is majorly gross and pretty much the only actually creepy thing about the movie itself.
- Survivor Guilt: Ruby has a mean case of it after the mobsters shot Nicky to death, but they left her alive even though she was cheating on her boyfriend at the time.
- Swamps Are Evil: Ruby lives next to one. And it’s where the mobsters shot Nicky to death.
- Vengeful Ghost: Nicky’s ghost comes back to kill his murderers and to torment Ruby, who he felt was in on the murder, though she protests she wasn’t. He also seems to want to possess Leslie and take her away from Ruby, claiming that she’s “his” to do with what he wants.
- The Voiceless: Ruby's daughter Leslie is mute and has been since birth.
- Weaponized Camera: The title character is given a home movie camera with a gun hidden inside.Vitali: It takes nine-millimeter film.
