That's funny, the dog never smells Satanists at home!

RACE WITH THE DEVIL

Starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, and Lara Parker

Directed by Jack Starrett

Written by Wes Bishop and Lee Frost

Original Release: 1975

DVD Release June 2005

This Anchor Bay DVD is a welcome release of a B-movie horror classic, well packaged and heaped with extras. In the hands of Jack Starrett (director of biker flicks like The Losers and blaxploitation like Cleopatra Jones ) the movie has tension and action to spare. In Race with the Devil , two blue-collar guys, Frank (Warren Oates) and Roger (Peter Fonda), who have been paying their dues for 5 years building their motorcycle business, are finally going on a dream skiing vacation in their motor home, taking their wives, Kelly (Lara Parker) and Alice (Loretta Swit). On their first night out, camped off-road in Texas back-country, Frank and Roger witness a human sacrifice by a group of Satanists. The campers are seen and must flee with the Satanists in pursuit. They make it to the next town to report the murder to the sheriff, but he seems way too unconcerned and too damn happy for their comfort. Later, the town mechanic, while fixing the rear window smashed by the Satanists, seems to be eavesdropping on the couples as they discuss telling the police in the next big city of the crime. And when they pull out of the small town, they are followed by a grimy red pickup.

On the road out of the empty spaces of Texas , the paranoia begins to set in with Kelly and her dog Ginger sensing Satanists at every general store and campsite along the route. A creepy dread takes over the movie as we wonder: are they being followed? Or worse, is everyone they meet in on it? There are constant knowing looks from gas station attendants and fellow campers. In one of the movie's best scenes, Kelly is swimming in the pool at a motor home campground and suddenly notices all the people sitting around the pool are staring at her, and many of them, smiling. And these are not scraggly-haired, wild-eyed stereotypical Satanists. These are middle-aged and elderly, ruddy-faced, well-scrubbed, short-(grey)haired middle class Americans. The pure products of America . Gone crazy.

And this is where the film starts making its own crazy poetry. While the small town sheriff had tried to blame hippies and drugs for the satanic ritual, everyone along road that we suspect is straight-looking people. There are many nice little touches to lead us this way such as the steel guitar player in a country bar who has a poster of a big-breasted Hindu goddess on wall behind. Hare Houston, Baby! As horror this works well, as we begin to dread the average Joe rather than some clear menace. And perhaps something is being said about the dark heart of America and the potential for the Devil to come out of a place as supposedly "family-values" as Texas--(oh how prescient the film has proven to be!).

We cannot ignore the presence of Peter Fonda here. In Easy Rider, he travels thru an America where hippies are also the scapegoats, and it is psychopathically violent “good Americans” who terrorize and shotgun them. In Race the good ol boys have gotten downright satanic. But in this film it is the biker boys who have the shotgun.

The tension builds with their motor home broken into, their dirt bikes sabotaged, and their Folgers re-caffeinated with a couple of huge rattlers that must be battled with some ski-pole fu (nods Joe-Bob). The creepy dread builds until it explodes into one of film's great car chases. Race provides a bridge from early car chase classics like The French Connection and Bullitt to later works like The Road Warrior , with a big nod to Ford's Stagecoach . Frank and Roger must take out a pickup, a feed-store panel truck, and a tow truck (no hot-rods or sports cars, just working-class vehicles). They must also deal with Molotov cocktails and gun-play. And when Winnebago warrior, Roger, takes out whole set of pursuers, this regular guy looks back at the carnage he has left with a grim satisfaction truly earned (unlike the impossibly invulnerable GI Joes of Schwarzenegger, Norris and Stallone).

Although it was made as a low budget, B film, Race with the Devil was a big hit at box office. Cults were all the rage in the mid-70s (makes me nostalgic—do you really prefer talking about Paris Hilton?) with headlines about Synanon, Manson's Family, Anton LaVey, and, later, Jim Jones. Even the Jesus freaks seemed creepy then (if we only had known how much...). The film touched a chord and played it just right. Warren Oates had the ideal hangdog face of the blue collar everyman. And Peter Fonda was one of the coolest and most under-utilized of actors. Sadly, this would be his last good role for many years. Despite its success, Devil just couldn't give him the bounce he needed. Just another instance of horror not getting its due. Kudos to Anchor Bay for doing so with this release.

Nemo Swift