"Race With the Devil" is my idea of a "guilty pleasure" movie if ever there were one. A low-budget picture with not overly deep characters and a rather simple plot (even costar Peter Fonda, in an excellent interview extra on this great-looking Anchor Bay DVD, describes the film as having "not a lot of nuance"), it is yet so much fun to watch, its four leads so likable, its suspense so real and its action such a blast, that the viewer is compelled to put aside his/her critical objections and just enjoy. In the film, two couples--Warren Oates (who just about steals the picture for me) & Loretta Swit (how nice to see her away from the Pusan Perimeter for a change!) and Fonda & Lara Parker--pack some dirt bikes aboard their new $36K motor home and drive off into the wilds of rural Texas (which, ever since a certain 1974 film involving chain saws, has seemed like a pretty scary place). Trouble ensues when the boys accidentally witness a nighttime satanic ritual, and the devil worshippers begin chasing the quartet throughout the state. The picture gets maximum creepy mileage from the fact that just about everyone the four encounter--be it sheriff, librarian or gas station attendant (that last played by director Jack Starrett himself!)--seems suspicious; it's almost as if everyone in the backcountry of Texas is an acolyte of Old Scratch! And this suspicion IS fairly well borne out, as the film goes all "Road Warrior"-ish and caps things off with an absolutely chilling ending. Buddies Fonda and Oates, who had previously worked together in "The Hired Hand" and "92 In the Shade," have great screen chemistry here; Peter tells us that the entire shoot was great fun, and that joy of film-making is certainly communicated to the viewer. A huge hit for 20th Century Fox back in 1975, "Race With the Devil" holds up excellently now, almost 35 years later. Although the vacationers in that summer's "Jaws" had a rough time, "Race"'s four vacationers surely had it no easier!
Review of Race with the Devil
