Race with the Devil *** (1975, Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, Lara Parker) – Classic Movie Review 5338

A vacation collapses amid blood, rattlesnakes and much talk of runes in director Jack Starrett’s devillishly bad, racily handled 1975 junk movie favourite, a Seventies trash classic.

It tracks holiday-makers Roger and Frank (Peter Fonda and Warren Oates) who take their wives Kelly (Lara Parker) and Alice (Loretta Swit) in an RV on an ill-fated jaunt to Texas, where they inadvertently stumble upon a bunch of blood-crazed Satanists.

Starrett’s action horror thriller road movie adventure has its risible side, but the outlandish situations are shoved before us with an enjoyable verve. It is ludicrous, overstuffed nonsense that roars by in a bewildering welter of speeding cars and the laughable cod mysticism of the era.

Starrett directs cannily, and Lee Frost and Wes Bishop write the screenplay just as cannily, all with their beady eyes on America’s now vanished drive-in market. Director Starrett appears as a petrol-pump attendant and producer/ co-writer Wes Bishop as the deputy.

Also in the cast are R G Armstrong as Sheriff Taylor, Clay Tanner, Carol Blodgett, Phil Hoover, Ricci Ware, Paul A Partain and Karen Miller.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5338

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