Race with the Devil

Two couples are on vacation and driving around in a huge motor home. They are Roger (Peter Fonda), Kelly (Lara Parker), Frank (Warren Oates) and Alice (Loretta Swit). One night while camping they see a Satanic ritual where a young girl is murdered. The members of the cult find out and the couples spend the rest of the movie with witches after them to kill them.

The story is a little silly and the dialogue is pretty bad but this is the type of movie that used to pack them in at drive-ins. It's full of action, fast-moving and has likable (if one-dimensional) characters. It's basically a chase movie disguised and marketed as a horror film. The killing in the movie isn't that explicit and the nudity in it is purposely blurred out-some people think it was edited from theatrical prints but it was always that way.

The acting doesn't really matter--I mean who's seeing this for the acting? Still all four actors give their all to this. The only thing that bothered me was Swit and Parker screaming nonstop when anything happens and letting Fonda and Oates "save" them. It's quite amusing to see Parker being attacked by witches in this one since she played the evil witch Angelique in the "Dark Shadows" TV series in the late 1960s. The climax is either a perfect one or a lousy one. I'm torn between the two myself.

Quick and fun with a really incredible car chase at the end.

As low budget horror movies go, "Race With The Devil" has aged well. The plot is simple--two couples en route to Aspen for a long overdue skiing vacation, end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and witness a human sacrifice. The rest of the film deals with their attempts to escape their pursuers, who happen to be modern day witches! Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H) and Lara Parker (Dark Shadows) are the couples in question, and R.G. Armstrong is the local sheriff they enlist to help them. All the performances are fine, especially the vastly underrated Oates, who is only now receiving the acclaim long due him, (he has since passed away) and his acting is as compelling as ever. The just-released DVD includes a commentary from producer Paul Maslansky and Lara Parker, a retrospective documentary with Peter Fonda, trailer, still and poster galleries and radio spots. Enhanced for widescreen TVs the film looks great, and is a great one to watch late at night (if not alone) when you feel the need for a few genuine scares.

My brother told me about "Race With the Devil" many years ago after he had seen some of it on a late night T.V showing. The way the film was described to me, made me curious in wanting to see it. I had to wait a while for the film to be shown again as obtaining it on video was going to be hard. BBC 2 eventually showed "Race With the Devil" in 1997 at about midnight. I was quite impressed with the final results. Warren Oates is the best actor in the film - he is most under-rated - but the other main cast members are OK. The film has a pretty good atmosphere and is well paced with a fair bit of incident. Nothing is quite what it seems at first glance. The ending comes after quite a build-up and I found it to be all the more shocking. This wasn't the kind of film that was expected to be a box office success but it is still a neat little film.

Not a classic movie perhaps, but a good little thriller with some very tense moments (like the fight with the snakes - I wonder how they did that) and a few spectacular car chases (the stuntwork is excellent). Director Jack Starrett does an effective job of creating a feeling of (justified) paranoia and conspiracy: what the heroes presume is a weird orgy turns out to be ritualistic murder, and what's worse for them, the initially small group of devil worshippers appears to be supported by entire towns! Peter Fonda and Warren Oates create two believable, down-to-earth characters that you can easily root for; on the other hand, the women are reduced to useless screamers during the moments of danger, in what I seriously consider the biggest annoyance of this film. (***)

Let's hop into the wayback machine and return to the North Cedar Drive-In Theatre in Spokane, Washington, circa 1975. It's hot and muggy and my best friend and I are seeing maybe the fortieth movie of the summer, sitting in my Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser or his 12 year old F-250 (I can't remember which). We sit back to watch Race With the Devil, an obvious B-grade horror flick we've heard great things about from friends.

I haven't seen Jack Starrett's RWD since that night in the summer of '75, but I distinctly remember how good it was, how merrily hell-bent-for-leather the action was, and the way it tied into our goofy fear of Satanic cults and human chains thirty years ago. If you were around the greater Spokane area (now there's an oxymoron!) way back when, you must have heard the stories coming out of Rathdrum, Idaho, north of Coeur d'Alene. This flick was shot in the southwest, but with all the rural versions of urban legends clanking about the Idaho Panhandle, Race With the Devil seemed like a home movie.

I believe the movie made a gob of money that year.

I recommend Race With the Devil in no small part for the fact that it's obvious the people involved are having a great time, a must for a low-budget movie. It has the pacing and the chills to scare teenagers wearing long hair and bell bottoms and, I'm sure after I order a copy from Amazon, it will put a grin on the face of this paunchy, middle-aged nostalgist.