Cult Film Week : Death Race 2000

Happy Valentine’s Day gang and hey what better way to commiserate the holiday that will yet another cult film.   Yeah we will be skipping the multitude of women in prison flicks if at all possible due to the mass damper it would be.   Instead let us focus on a Roger Corman production that has folks still talking about it and created remakes and prequels to that remake.   So fasten your harness, pop a couple adrenaline pills and let’s rack up some points.   This is Death Race 2000.

Go Speed Racer Go Speed Racer!

Spoilers are not above God but above man.

In the latter 1970’s The United States are no more.  The New World has collapsed between financial ruin and a military coup.  A singular Bipartisan Party acts as a national church controlling media and way of thinking, the result is a police state called the United Provinces (I smell the evils of Canada at work) led by Mr. President (Sandy McCallum of Fantasy Island, Lou Grant, Thomas Edison and the Electric Light and Solomon).  To pacify the mindless drones an session of gladiatorial events are broadcasted including the  Annual Transcontinental Death Race a three-day race were points are scored not merely based on skill and speed but the number of innocent pedestrians that are killed during the race.  Yes that is correct they are purposely running down people in their souped up rides.  In the far away timeline of 2000 the 20th Annual Death Race is rearing to go.  So let’s meet the contestants shall we?

Man, haven't heard this many boos since Cliffhanger.

We have Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone of Rocky, First Blood, Nighthawks, Cobra, Over the Top, Lock Up and The Expendables)  his custom-built car looks like a hybrid dune buggy has a huge Rambo like knife welded to front along with twin machine guns bolted and mounted to the front as well.  His navigator Myra (Louisa Moritz of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Sixpack Annie, The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, New Year’s Evil, True Confessions and Lunch Wagon) Nero the Hero (Martin Kove of Last House on the Left, Bloodtide, The Karate Kid, Cagney and Lacy, The Man from Nowhere, Revamped and Savage) in “The Lion” a modified Fiat 850 Spider with navigator Cleopatra (Leslie McRay of Girl in Gold Boots, Coffy, Willie Dynamite and Hit Lady)

Matilda the Hun (Robert Collins of Women in Cages, The Big Doll House, Caged Heat, Alias Big Cherry, Eaten Alive and Whiskey Mountain) decked out like a nazi in her modified Volkswagen Karmann Ghia body shaped into a V-1 Flying bomb and her navigator Herman” The German” Boch (Gopher??  Um Fred Grandy of Maude, Monster Squad, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat) Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov of Eating Raoul, Get Crazy, Blood Theatre, Young Lust and Night of the Comet) and her Bull buggy and navigator Pete (William Shepard of Beyond the Time Barrier and Phantom of the Paradise) And of course the man you have all been waiting for.  The most celebrated racer of all time and the government’s champion FRANKENSTEIN!!!! (David Carradine of Kung Fu, Circle of Iron, Deathsport, Lone Wolf McQuade, The Warrior and the Sorceress, Warlords, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Hellride and Kill Bill: Vol. 2) half man and half machine, Frankenstein goes back out on the road that beckons him he wear a mask to cover his disfigured face and his outfit screams I just left the afterhours BDSM bar and boy are my legs tired.  In his modified Shala Vette he is accompanied by his new navigator Annie Smith  (Simone Griffeth of Ladies’ Man, Amanda’s, Hot Target, The Patriot and A Funeral 4 Two) With play by play commentary Junior Bruce (Don Steele of Targets, The Student Leaders, The Day the Earth Moved, Grand Theft Auit and Rock ‘n’ Roll High School) you get the feeling that is to be a dark comedy poking fun at the couch potatoes in front of the sets across the country that have no thought whatsoever about how their rights, privileges and dreams have been taken. 

Hard to talk in this mask doing 90!

There is quite a bit of tongue and cheek jokes, people getting mowed over with this wild rides.  Throughout the broadcast there are interruptions of which are blamed on the French.  Apparently they are also the reason the economy is in the toilet and the phone company is on the fritz.  Merde!  The effects are fairly decent, I love how every car is just as important as its driver and the total lack of empathy when a pedestrian is mauled and mutilated.   This is an underrated story but yes fellas there be titty as well.