A cross country road wreck and the traffic is murder!
As a frequent visitor to Fun Spot in Laconia, NH, which claims to be the largest arcade in the world and certainly has a massive collection of vintage, stand up arcade machines, I’m familiar with a lot of the old classics from the 1970s such as Death Race from 1979.
Death Race is an arcade driving video game developed and released by Exidy in the United States, first shipping to arcade distributors in April 1976. In Death Race, the objective became to run into “gremlins” to gain score.
In the arcade game you are suppose to be driving over “gremlins” to score but to the casual players, those little sprites sure seem like humans.
The idea of killing people with your car sure seems quaint these days with video games like Grand Theft Auto but thankfully in real lie we are still horrified by acts of violence and terrorism via vehicle which have occurred around the world.
Death Race the arcade game was certainly inspired by the movie Death Race 2000 which came out the previous year.
Death Race 2000 is the brain-child of low budget B-movie king Roger Corman ( The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963), The Wild Angels (1966). He saw the success of Rollerball (1975) the previous year and wanted to make his own dystopian sport movie.
Set in a dystopian American society in the year 2000, the film centers on the murderous Transcontinental Road Race, in which participants score points by striking and killing pedestrians. David Carradine stars as “Frankenstein”, the leading champion of the race, who is targeted by an underground rebel movement seeking to abolish the race. The cast also features Simone Griffeth, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Woronov, Martin Kove, and Don Steele.
I’ve been meaning to see the film and finally downloaded it from Amazon Prime and watched it on a recent flight to Florida. Right away I knew I was watching a movie that was going to be better than I expected.
The movie has the vibe of other “game” movies such as The Running Man (1987) and The Hunger Games (2012) with a sports announcer giving the play by play and interviewing the drivers.
The movie is wickedly clever with its political commentary. It takes place after the “World Crash of 1979” and Mr. President gives “you what you want” which seems to be a violent multiday road race.
In this future “Mr. President” hangs out in his summer palace in Peking, China . The Death Race is held every year as a distraction to the citizens and as perhaps a method of population control as the drivers “score” citizens along trans-contintent race course. Various types of humans are worth various points towards the final tally.
“My children, whom I love so dearly, it has been my duty in the long and difficult years since the World Crash of ’79 to serve you as best I could. Never before in history have masses forgone all comfort, so that the spirit of genius might thrive and seek the golden key to a new time of plenty in the fertile field of minority privilege. And now, my children, the drivers are ready. The world is watching. Once more, I give you what you want.” – Mr. President
Scoring as told by the announcer in the movie “…this year’s rule changes. To recap those revisions: women are still worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets, but teenagers now rack up 40 points, and toddlers under 12 now rate a big 70 points. The big score: anyone, any sex, over 75 years old has been upped to 100 points.”
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The Competitors
- Frankenstein, the mysterious black-garbed champion and national hero “Frankenstein! Frankenstein the legend, Frankenstein the indestructible! Sole survivor of the titanic pile-up of ’95, only two-time winner of the Transcontinental Road Race… Frankenstein! Ripped up, wiped out, battered, shattered, creamed, and reamed… a dancer on the brink of death… Frankenstein, who lost a leg in ’98, an arm in ’99! With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he’s back!”
- Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, a Chicago gangster – “Here he comes: Machine Gun Joe! Loved by thousands, hated by millions!”
- Calamity Jane, a cowgirl
- Matilda the Hun, a Neo-Nazi
- Nero the Hero, a Roman gladiator
The fix is in with crowd favorite Frankenstein who supposedly rebuilt after various crashes but we come to believe that maybe if Frankenstein is killed in a race, he is simply replaced with a new driver.
A big B-movie surprise and perhaps the cause of many a “boner” among adolescent boys at the drive in back in the 70s, the competitors seem to sleep together (driver and navigator) at the daily pitstops which take place in a some really huge and wildly decorated bedrooms.
The violence in the movie is surprisingly mild compared to today’s films. Quick gut always and a lot of red paint on the screen for a brief moment when one of the cars runs down a victim or spears them with their “horns” or “spikes”. I kept waiting for Machine Gun Joe to let loose the twin guns on the front of his car but it never happened. The R rating was earned by the nudity in the after race rub downs and bedroom action, not the violence me thinks.
- Frankenstein: [Frankenstein just barely avoids Annie’s attempt to run them both off a cliff] What the hell do you think you’re doing?
- Annie Paine: It doesn’t matter what happens to me now.
- Frankenstein: Now that is about the dumbest, sorriest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I don’t believe you have a drop of Thomasina Paine’s blood in your whole body. I mean, when things get tough, you close your eyes and try to drive us off a cliff! If you’d just stop trying to kill me for a minute, I need your help.
- Annie Paine: How can you possibly expect me to help you!
- Frankenstein: You’re my navigator.
- Annie Paine: You’re the only one who knows where you’re going! I mean, whose side are you on, anyway? I thought the only thing that mattered to you was winning the race.
- Frankenstein: Sure. Only the winner of the race gets to shake hands with Mr. President.
- [takes off his glove]
- Annie Paine: Is that a grenade?
- Frankenstein: A “hand grenade”. That handshake is all I’ve lived for for as long as I can remember.
- [puts his glove back on and clenches his fist]
- Annie Paine: Now, wait a minute! I don’t want you to die.
- Frankenstein: It’s my life’s work.