This seventies action/horror hybrid was a late night television mainstay in the eighties. Any kid happening upon it while switching channels was instantly glued to the sofa right up until the nightmare-inducing finale. PETER FONDA, WARREN OATES, LORETTA SWITT and LARA PARKER play two couples looking for a little R&R in a righteous R.V. Instead they stumble across a depraved satanic ritual in full swing. At first the inebriated pals think they've lucked out and discovered a hippie orgy — that is until the masked leader of the coven brandishes a blade and guts a naked nubile necromancer like she was a carp. Loud mouth Loretta exposes the camper full of witnesses and there starts a harrowing cross-country road rally that would humble MAD MAX. Economic, inventive, and filled with some the best car chases you're likely to see, RACE also invokes one of the best paranoia moods this side of ROSEMARY'S BABY. Almost everyone the couples come into contact with as they try to flee the cult, from trailer park oldsters to toothless hillbilly car mechanics, seems to be a possible buddy of Beelzebub. Even if you tried to resist this old school thrill ride, the soundtrack itself will grab you by the collar and pull you along with it. Complete with a hopeless ending that modern test screening audiences would jettison in a heart beat, this wrong place, wrong time movie gets everything right.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
- Witnessing the sacrifice "That's not rough, that's choice!"
- The fate of Ginger the dog
- Kitchen o'rattlesnakes
- Kick-ass Fonda in Sonny Bono garb, taking care of business atop the R.V.