November 10, 2018
Written by: Mike Marvin
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Nick Cassavetes, Sherilyn Fenn
Budget: $2,700,000
Quote: "You listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch! There's a kid out there usin' his car to kill people, not that it's such a big deal since it seems to be your gang he's got it in for... so, if you guys try to take the law into your own hands, and that killer turns up dead, I'm gonna see you all sniffin' cyanide in the Arizona gas chamber."
Trivia: Dedicated to the memory of Bruce Ingram, who worked on the film as an assistant cameraman. He was the single person killed when the camera car overturned.
Oh man, here we go again with the weirdness of the 1980s! This movie makes almost no sense, but that's okay, it's chocked so full of 80s greatness that the story line (or lack thereof) can take a backseat (no pun intended). The movie stars Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks!), Randy Quaid, Nick Cassavetes (the son of the legendary actor and independent movie icon John Cassavetes), and Clint Howard (with an Eraserhead haircut). Both Sheen and Quaid would later go on to produce their own independent shorts during their public mental breakdowns. The movie also has a killer soundtrack with Billy Idol, Ozzy Osbourne, and Bonnie Tyler among others. The movie itself is a scifi revenge film about a kid that comes back from the dead to race a car around, kill his tormentors, and bang Audrey Horne. And to top it all off, there is even a handful of topless nudity scattered throughout the film. Story structured be damned! Fast cars, deaths, and boobs are what this film delivers.
The movie takes place somewhere in Arizona and begins with some kid being killed by a gang led by Packard Walsh (Nick Cassavetes) for trying to bang a girl named Keri (Sherilyn Fenn) that Packard felt was his property. Afterwards, some new kid named Jake (Charlie Sheen) shows up and befriends Keri and the dead kid's brother Billy. While Jake and Keri get closer (they eventually bang in some desert spring) we see the power that Packard and his gang have over the town. However, this power is short lived as a helmeted driver begins killing Packard's gang one by one. Eventually Packard and the mysterious driver race each other for Keri (wtf?) and Packard is killed. In the end, everyone finds out the masked driver is Jake who is the reincarnated ghost of the kid that died. Keri and Jake ride off into the moonlight to live happily ever after.
Alright. Packard and his gang are amazing! Two of the gang members are named Skank and Gutterboy who are druggie stereotypes that spend the whole movie saying stupid shit and twitching a lot. There is also Rughead played by Clint Howard who is the brains of the operation. His job in the gang is fixing the cars, I guess. Either way, he adds some nerdy intellectualism to the group and has this amazing haircut that looks exactly like Jake Nance's hair in Eraserhead. Then there is Packard who is the big tough guy that everyone is afraid of. He does do a decent job of appearing tough but at times overdoes it (as if anything in this film is subtle). Man, gangs in 80s films are so weird. When they are not full of punks or rastafarians, they are almost always a mishmash of weird stereotypes. I also love the weird plot point that the gang terrorizes the Arizona city by forcing its teenage inhabitants to street race for pink slips. Speaking of teenagers... apparently everyone in the city is in high school aside from a few policemen. Where the hell are the adults? It's like a slightly older Lord of the Flies, but with cars.
I guess at its heart, this movie is a ghost revenge story? In order to make the movie stand out from other ghost stories, this ghost is given a cool and high tech image. The metal suit and car really do make the wraith look pretty damn cool. The way he gets revenge is also pretty cool. With three of the gang members he races them forcing them to crash leaving their dead bodies unscratched except their eyes burnt out of their sockets. Awesome, right?! A couple of others he just blows away with a shotgun. Not so creative, but the eye socket thing is pretty great!
Randy Quaid also does a great job as the fed up southwestern sheriff, who is tired of these damn kids. While he doesn't really do anything throughout the film except watch kids get killed and harass the gang members, he does help connect the disparate parts of the narrative. Also, it is just great seeing uncle Eddie as a sheriff harassing teenagers.
Finally, Sherilyn Fenn. The beautiful Audrey Horne. She is absolutely stunning in this film spending large parts of the film in either a bathing suit or in a crop top with a short skirt. So what, the movie doesn't make much sense? So what, there are huge chunks of the movie that drag? So what, the ghost science fiction car driver thing is damn ridiculous? The movie has the beautiful Sherilyn Fenn, fast cars, and and people's eyes being burnt out of their sockets! And you know what? That is good enough for me.
...what's your thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment