Review of Death Race 2000 (1975) by Paul A — 05 Jan 2016

Death Race 2000 is one of those films that you know is shit. But as long as you accept that it is shit you can enjoy it immensely.

The premise is simple. Five drivers race across The United States vying to not only be the first to cross the line, but also to rack up the most points, points which are awarded for killing members of the public by running them over in increasingly gory ways.

Of course there is more to it than that, there is a sub plot to over throw the President of the World (being a film set in the future, the President of the United States is obviously automatically the President of the World :-/ ). To this end one of the resistance fighters has somehow infiltrated the race as one of the navigators in order to sabotage it. Worry not though, as our anti-hero Frankenstein (played by David Carradine) takes her to bed in the second act, and so she soon falls into place working with him rather than against him.

The gore is of course laughable by today's standards but that just adds to the fun. In fact the scariest thing is the big hairy minge of one of the female stars who sits up half way through a naked massage. I know it was filmed in 1974, but surely someone could have CGI'd it out for the DVD release?

There is also a an early appearance by Sylvester Stallone, which rather than being embarrassing, worryingly looks like he filmed it last year, so little has his acting style progressed in 39 years.

More often than not the footage of the cars is sped up and at times resembles the chase at the end of an episode of Benny Hill. Also at one point the resistance positions a cardboard cut out, of the front of a tunnel, next to a cliff and a car drives straight through it and plummets to a fiery explosions. When my wife pointed out this something Wile E Coyote would do to Roadrunner I nearly choked on my popcorn.

So yes it's shit, and yes it's laughable, and yes there was obviously very little budget to work with. And yes, it's a great watch. After all when David Carradine is delivering, with all seriousness, lines like "I lost my taste buds in the crash of 97" how can you not love it?