Review of Race with the Devil (1975) by Rosco B — 14 Apr 2016

Peter Fonda and Warren Oates combine again as holiday-makers in a preposterously sized Winnebago chased by satanists from the sticks. The mood is typically paranoid - this being post-Watergate, mid-seventies America after all - and though the film falls flat in a lot of places, the actual scenes depicting the diabolists and their sacrifice work very well, one even coming back to give Tom Hanks the willies while catching it on TV in 'The 'Burbs'.

Still, Starrett (drafted in after Lee Frost was booted from the project) handles the chase sequences well enough and there's fun to be had as our pursued heroes have to deal with poolside perverts, a gratuitous redneck bar-brawl, attacks on their pets ('GINGER!') and cunningly hidden rattlesnakes (who hadn't reckoned on Oates' death-dealing ski stick).

Whereas Oates (an absolute legend) can convince as a hick, Fonda struggles, and perhaps tries too hard to make it for it by having his Alpha-Male character get up to all sorts of perilous hi-jinks while dealing out the majority of butt-kicking to the cultist baddies.

Incidentally, the scene where Oates proudly shows Fonda around their 'state of the art' RV should be preserved for future generations. Unintentional comedy gold! Lara Parker and Loretta 'Hot Lips Hoolihan' Swit play the dynamic duo's wives and Peckinpah stalwart R.

G. Armstrong cameos as a distinctly dodgy small-town sheriff. Worth watching, if only for the creepy opening credits, the vivid sacrifice scene and the wonderfully ambiguous, flame-licked ending.