Kitsch is one of those things that only works best on a small scale, like those little hula girl toys on the dashboard of a car. Those are kitsch. The girl makes you think of things so tacky and tasteless they're almost – but not quite – ironically funny. This overlooking of an item's tackiness seems to get complicated on the grander scale, like in Las Vegas.

Such is the case with Chicagoland's only remaining and operating drive-in theater. Loacted in West Chicago, it is a place full of bad taste, poor design, antiquated technologies and lots of mosquitoes, which seems like the perfect candidate for the kitsch stamp of approval. But then I encountered the scale: The place has more than 1,200 parking spots. Let's just suppose each car has – of course – two people in it. The theater's capacity is then 2,400 people. The screen is twice as large as any you find in a theater today and, in case you've never seen a film set in the 1950s, those 1,200 spaces come with 1,200 speaker boxes so you can listen to the film.

The size of the place makes you think not of irony, but of nostalgia for when this was the ultimate form of entertainment. Now, you are almost frightened by its size and you in it. If you walk in to the concession stand – which I highly recommend doing – the design, with its red and orange shag carpet, slips past kitsch and falls somewhere in the realm of The Shining. Somewhere in the concession stand's back room is a man with an axe typing away ... all work and no play makes jack a dull boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ... Frightening.

When I visited the theater, there were families with their kids or dogs, teenagers making out, half the viewers sipping a beer that was slipped past the watchful eyes of the management, and me, sitting in my air-conditioned car, smoking a cigarette with my car stereo tuned the theater's radio station.

Maybe I was wrong about this place: It's amazing, but still not without a small touch of irony. The place plays double features, with the first film geared towards kids, and the second more for adults. Last year's best line-up? Rugrats followed by Freddy vs. Jason . Like I said, amazing.

The Cascade Drive-In is located at 26 W 741 North Avenue, West Chicago, Illinois, 60185, and is open seven days a week. The first film begins at 8 p.m. For more information visit www.cascadedrivein.com.