Death Race 2000 (1975)

"If they scatter, go for the baby and the mother!"

One of Roger Corman's most successful and best loved movies, Death Race 2000 is, by turns, a sly satire on 70s America, a hi-octane splatter-fest and a pure kitsch artifact. Recalling nothing so much as a bloodstained reworking of TV cartoon classic Wacky Races (1968 - 1970) (in Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman noted that "It's the closest real movies have come to Chuck Jones's Road Runner cartoons"), Death Race 2000 is a witty and deftly produced B-movie classic. Ignoring the basic absurdities of the plot (why would anyone be on the streets when they know the road racers are out to get them?), Bartel attacks the hysterical script as though he believes every word of it, getting great performances from all involved and staging some wonderful set-pieces. The best of the latter include Frankenstein's mowing down of the doctors who left a bunch of old patients out to die ("which only goes to show that even the fearsome Frankenstein has a 100%, red-blooded American sense of humour"), the brain-dead 'chicken gang' and the shady American government passing the activities of the rebels off as the work of "the treacherous French"! The rebels themselves are hardly any better - disorganised and bickering among themselves, the revolution is headed by the dotty Thomasina Paine, a grey-haired geriatric and peopled by long-hairs and drop-outs with not the slightest clue as to what they're actually doing.

The world of the Transcontinental Road Race is a bleak nightmare, a place where the only people who know what they're doing are the homicidal road racers and where well-placated citizens will gladly lay down their lives for the good of the Race. In one of the films few serious moments, Frankenstein encounters the clearly disturbed young woman chosen by her fellows in the Frankenstein fan club as this year's sacrificial virgin. Running her down without a second thought, Frankenstein dismisses his actions with a curt "it's what she wanted... she wanted to show me she loved me." It's an oddly affecting moment in a film that otherwise plays the violence and mayhem for laughs.

Thom and Griffith's clever screenplay casts barbs in all directions, striking out at dubious American politics, the fanaticism of sports fans and the parasitical tendencies of the American mass media without ever becoming preachy or smug. Death Race 2000 is a B-movie with a brain, an exploitation film with something to say, questioning America's fascination with violence and control and its reliance on television for information and education. It castigates the media for its trivialisation of death and violence (the team covering the event offer star prizes to the shell-shocked widow of the Race's first victim) while walking a shaky tightrope between attacking its chosen target and joining in with it.

But Death Race 2000 never loses sight of its roots as a black comedy, Bartel deftly translating Thom and Griffith's grim humour into one of the most durable comedies of the 1970s. Incidental detail (pedestrian crossing lights flash 'Run' as the racers approach) rubs shoulders with some of the sharpest and funniest dialogue you could ever hope to hear, all delivered with commendably straight faces by the cast.

At the closure, the film suggests that the new regime being ushered in by the newly elected President Frankenstein will find it hard to give up its old ways - unable to take any more of the inane gibberings of Junior Bruce, the appalling TV personality who pops up from time to time to comment on the proceedings, our man simply runs him over. The world may have seen the end of the Road Race, but something else will surely take its place.

Some references have suggested that the films Deathsport (1978) is a sequel to Death Race 2000, though there seems to be very little hard evidence to support such claims. It shares the same star and many of the same production crew, but beyond that has nothing whatever to do with Bartel's film. Bartel himself tried to repeat the success of Death Race 2000 with the altogether tamer and more forgettable Cannonball (1976), a non-fantasy quickie set in 70s America which lacked the acerbic wit of Death Race 2000 and was filled to overflowing with pointless cameos.
KEVIN LYONS

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009