Best pals Roger (Peter Fonda) and Frank (Warren Oates) pack up their wives for the road trip of a lifetime. Frank has just purchased a brand-spanking-new “$36,000” motor home and he’s eager to show it off. Heading out from Dallas with the intention of skiing in Colorado, the gang spends their first night off road in the Texas desert, which turns out to be a colossal mistake. While their wives sleep the boys sit outside, drink, and reminisce. Across the river from their camp they spy some sort of ceremony going on around a bonfire. Initially they are gleeful as some breasts make an appearance, could it be an orgy? You wish! Pulling out their binoculars they are horrified when they witness a satanic cult sacrificing a virgin. When Frank’s wife yells for them to come to bed (why would she care?), the cult spies them and gives chase. The rest of the film involves the gang’s desperate attempt to outrun this satanic cult in their motor home in order to gain safety. What they soon learn is exactly how far this cult has permeated the neighboring communities. Nobody, cops, store clerks, locals, can be trusted and everyone appears menacing.
Oh what b-movie fun! For years I’ve only been able to catch Race With the Devil full-screen on muddy VHS. Imagine my delight when this was given the DVD treatment 2 years ago. I first discovered this film in college. Picture it, it’s late Friday night and everyone else is at a frat party drinking and getting laid. Having never figured out how to properly penetrate that mysterious world I sat in my shoebox dorm room with my tiny black and white TV. As I spun the dial back and forth hoping for some television greatness (I was tired of playing Tetris) I stumbled upon Race With the Devil. Five minutes in I was hooked. What’s not to like here? Peter Fonda and Warren Oates slumming in a b-movie, with a group of angry Satanists throw in to boot, woo-hoo! The film’s simple conceit is what makes it so much fun. All you need to know is that they are being chased for 90 minutes by enraged cult members. The cult members are vicious in their pursuit and do annoying things like destroying Fonda's motorcycles or hiding pesky, deadly snakes in Frank's motor home. The action is ratcheted up when the boys purchase guns at a five and dime and think nothing of unloading buckshot into their nemesis. The surprisingly bleak ending will catch you off guard. Race With the Devil is great fun and one of my faves.
5 comments:
I've never heard of this movie! I must have been at that frat party.
Ah, Satan worship! I think that's the favorite suburban myth, that the Dark One's minions perform evil rites on the same public picnic tables where you eat baloney sandwiches out of ziploc bags. I remember when JPX had a brief fishing phase and we'd head to a dinky bridge popular with anglers. I was under the dock looking for worms and two teenage boys were under there sucking noisily on a joint (first time I'd ever seen anyone doing that). One of them was loudly declaring that he knew the spot where the local human sacrifices took place at the hands of Seekonk, MA's thriving devil-worshipping community.
Then he suddenly waved his hands in front of his face going "No! NO! Get away from me!" and fell backwards to lethally strike his head on a sharp rock. Looked like an accident, but me and the other kid knew better. Okay, not really.
If he'd been talking to me, I'm sure I would've been all "whoah, really?" even though I could tell he was full of it.
That bridge has since been declared unsafe for cars to use.
When the hell did I ever fish?
Like I said, it was a brief phase. It was when you were living in the first house in Barrington; you and Bryce would head over to the bridge on that now-defunct short cut to Route 6. I think it was Bryce's phase really and you glommed onto it for a week or so. I only went that one time.
I got bored and went down to the rocks under the river to catch minnows for bait, and some other kid let me have all the minnows in the trap he was emptying out. I went back up with a paper cup crammed full of unhappy minnows and you couldn't believe how many I'd caught.
You don't remember any of this?
Even I remember JPX fishing, it's one of my earliest memories. I never understood the whole fishing thing either.
The closing of that bridge really annoyed me, that was a beautiful shortcut. The rumor was that a cop that lived in the neighborhood spear-headed its closing to reduce traffic in the already quiet neighborhood.
When the hell did I ever fish?
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