Steel Arena (1973)

More automotive shenanigans with me checking out Steel Arena. The plot, such as it is, follows a driver named Dusty. When we first meet him, he is hitching a ride into a small town. He strolls into the bar and after letting the bartender know he can’t afford his drinks is offered a job. They want him to run some moonshine which leads to a car chase after the sheriff shows up at the still! Dusty isn’t getting paid because he lost the load but does end up in a brawl where he meets Buddy. The pair then take the car down to enter a destruction derby for the prize money. Not only do they win but are then offered a job as daredevils for the traveling stunt show.

The rest of the movie are the pair along with the other drivers and stunt folks going from town to town smashing cars, jumping and smashing cars, and flipping and smashing cars. There is a lot of smashing here. We also get an attempt at storytelling where Crash, another driver, gets jealous that Dusty is the new featured driver in the show and is getting all the good stunts. This leads to bigger and more dangerous stunts as everyone has to up their game. Folks start to die and then the credits roll.

Much like C.B. Hustlers, which I covered recently, this movie is light on plot. There is just enough narrative to connect the various stunt shows. The story follows the pattern of some talking, a stunt show, some more talking as they drive to the next town, and another show. We do get hints at subplots with the owner of the show manipulating Dusty into riskier tricks to draw bigger crowds. There is also a lady that travels with Dusty, though I don’t think she ever gets a name. They even setup the fact that a now fired and angry Crash is going to sabotage the big jump that happens at the end of the flick. Though nothing is ever shown on screen and things end abruptly with the final scene being the girl boarding a bus to go home. Story wise there isn’t much here.  

The lack of plot isn’t helped by the fact that the cast is made up of actual stunt drivers using their real names and not actors playing parts. This means when they do try to deliver lines it mostly comes off flat and uninspired. So maybe not spending much time trying to develop characters and storylines is a good thing. The flip side of this is the cast is doing the stunts on screen and that brings a realism to the proceedings you don’t see in most of these movies. Cars get smashed up and the character climbs out of them, many times without a cut (to the scene not the actor)! That was a cool twist on this familiar genre.

The stunts are also well executed and since most of them are on tracks as part of a show take place in a controlled environment where they can really crank things up. Though the same tricks are show again and again as they build up the desire to jump further and flip more. From a narrative standpoint it makes sense, but seeing it play out repeatedly gets a bit old. Still, I think that while this isn’t a great movie it does bring enough mayhem and smashed up old cars that fans of this subgenre will dig it enough for at least a single watch.

Not a huge recommendation but unlike some of the other tedious entries I’ve covered, again C.B. Hustlers is a prime example, there are enough payoffs with the car crashes that I can’t completely hate it. But then again, I did grow up in the seventies where going to the county fair to see folks purposely run into each other until either they or the car couldn’t continue was considered a fun Saturday night! Still is actually…

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Hooch (1977)

Eddie Joe, played by Gil Gerard, is running shine and the sheriff knows it. But every time he tries to catch him in the act he either gets away or doesn’t have anything on him. This is especially annoying to the sheriff because Eddie Joe is sweet on his niece Ginnie. If the criminal stuff isn’t enough, he is pissed off that Eddie Joe is stepping out with another woman, Jamie Sue, the daughter of one of the other moonshiners! Toss in the fact that Eddie Joe is the only supplier of shine that refuses to pay the sheriff off and it gets messy.

It gets worse when a stranger shows up in town. His name is Tony, and he is a mobster checking out the local bootlegging scene. When he sees how much money can be made he brings his boss in and they start making plans to take over. With the help of Old Bill, Jamie Sue’s pop, they locate the other stills and blow them up. Then they try arranging a meeting and try to blow up the bootleggers themselves. Along the way they try to frame Eddie Joe for the crime and turn the locals against him. Not only does he have the best shine, but his still is hidden and is the only one they haven’t been able to get rid of. This leads to a big finale with a shoot out and a car chase. Damn I forgot to mention that Eddie Joe drives a sweet El Camino.

I really liked this movie. It is a mix of carsploitation, moonshiners, and hicksploitation blended in a fun package. Gerard is great as Eddie Joe playing it low key and laid back. It is almost as if the part was written for his personality, which it was. He also wrote the story that the script was based on! There is always something happening on screen whether it is him romancing one of the two ladies, cracking wise with the sheriff, or the comedic gags with the locals it is a blast. There is a bit in the middle with a musical number and a lot of dancing and a bar fight that feels like padding where Hooch slows down a bit. But then the movie does pick up after that and ends in a fun finale.

It was the '70s and Gil was cool!

I was expecting a bit more car chase action, but what we do get is fine. Honestly, I don’t think they had the budget to crash anything so manage your expectations. You do get to see a couple nice rides and folks do end up in disposable vehicles, so you know they are going over an embankment or into the river. The inclusion of the mobsters halfway thru feels a bit forced but the actors are decent and there are some laughs to be had. It was weird to see Danny Aiello in a movie like this. He plays Tony and ends up with a butt full of buckshot… comedy!

A few other things to mention about Hooch. The soundtrack is filled with some appropriate seventies’ country toons. There are some awesome lines like, “I like my bourbon old and my women young.” Seriously Eddie Joe is one smooth operator when it comes to the ladies! There is even a funny Kojak line that if you don’t recognize one of the actors you will miss, but it made me giggle. Finally, the financial success of this movie was partly responsible for the creation of The Dukes of Hazzard. Honestly as a child of the seventies how the hell did I not know about this movie before now?

I had a lot of fun with Hooch and recommend that you go track yourself down a copy. It is a fun bit of drive-in cheese that is a must watch for folks who dig cars, hicks, or are just looking for a fun way to kill ninety minutes.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

C.B. Hustlers (1976)

You guys ready for another batch of Automotive mayhem? These are the movies set in and around the car culture and/or highway life. It is a uniquely American thing and was very important for the drive-in movie market from the fifties thru the sixties. This one, for better or worse, is a prime example.

Let me start with a plot synopsis, though for a movie like this it doesn’t much matter. There is a guy who goes by the C.B. Handle of Dancer. He drives around in a sweet custom van (Hot Box 1) talking to truckers on the radio. Why? Well because he has another van (Hot Box 2) with working girls in it, the titular C.B. Hustlers, and acts as their pimp. We find this out pretty fast as he directs them to a truck stop and they get right to work.

There is also a local sheriff who wants to clean up his county and get rid of all the undesirables. This includes a bunch of van enthusiasts who are having a festival/rally in an open field. I suppose there is some conflict because the girls ignore their normal eighteen wheeler customers for the four wheeler customers, but nothing much comes out of it. The local paper, basically a couple guys who serve as comedic relief, are also trying to do an expose like them “Watergate fellas”. Stuff happens and then the movie is over.

C.B. Hustlers is a prime example of someone making product for the drive-in circuit rather than a movie. There isn’t much story here, so it is easy to imagine this as the second or third feature on the bill when the audience was well into the other pursuits. There is a reason that they were called passion pits you know. There is some eye candy for those occasionally looking up at the screen in both the cool vans and the ladies getting naked. There are a lot of examples, and they are spaced evenly throughout the duration. And if you insist on watching the movie, as I did for this review, there are also some attempts at humor. Though they don’t really work well.

My biggest issue with the movie is a complete lack of plot. They have at best an outline of what they want, but many of the scenes are clearly improvised. We also get wide shots from way back with characters walking up and “talking” to each other. Far enough away that you can’t see their mouths move which allows the filmmakers to dub whatever dialogue or exposition they need in to push the story along. After about half an hour C.B. Hustlers runs out of steam and becomes tedious. This is the case even though I watched the VHS cut which removes ten minutes of the movie! From what I can tell it isn’t anything good they were just trying to speed it up.

Fans might be interested in the fact that the movie was directed by Stu Segall who was responsible for the much better Drive-in Massacre. It also stars… well one of the girls is played by Uschi Digard. If you don’t recognize that name, she was an actress who brought her ample “assets” to many a Russ Meyer flick.

Unless you are a diehard drive-in aficionado like myself, I can’t imagine you would have any desire to spend your time watching C.B. Hustlers. It had a decent formula and folks behind and in front of the camera who knew what they were doing. Sadly, the utter lack of plot dooms this to the pile of painfully mediocre schlock.

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Ruckus (1980)

Made a couple of years before Rambo this odd combination of lighthearted chase movie is combined with some Hicksploitation and Vetsploitation elements. If you aren’t familiar with these terms Hicksploitation is when you have some rural characters that are inexplicably hostile and Vetsploitation is when a traumatized vet comes back home and is treated poorly normally leading to some violence.

Ruckus stars Dirk Benedict as a Vietnam vet who we find out was captured twice and spent time in a Viet Cong prison camp, escaping both times. This is important because he doesn’t like being locked up. We see him wander into town and buy a raw hamburger from a stand before trying to leave. The local big shot, Bellows, wants to talk to him about his missing son. He recognizes the unit patch on his jacket and hopes beyond hope that he might know something. But Kyle, the vet, ignores him and tries to leave town.

The sheriff and Bellows are both sympathetic to Kyle, which is an odd change for movies like this where they normally would be the villains and are happy to leave him be. But there is a deputy and a few others that take a dislike to him, which is only made worse when they mess with him, and he kicks their butts! From that point forward they are not only cruel but a bit homicidal towards him. They go from zero to lets murder this guy in a heartbeat. Toss in Bellows’ daughter in law Jenny who is a bit sweet on Kyle and there is some jealousy added to the fire. This all leads to a big showdown that is at times silly chase flick and at other times very dark and violent.

I really enjoyed Ruckus. It is paced well just enough character development to make you sympathetic towards Kyle and to understand the predicament of not knowing for sure that Jenny and her father in law are dealing with. I liked these characters. And again, I was very surprised in the decision to make the sheriff and patriarch of the Bellows’ family kind people. That isn’t what the formula dictates. That said I’m not sure why the locals get so bloodthirsty so quickly and more importantly how they thought they could commit murder under the noses of men who would care and assumedly try to punish them.

On a much lighter note, we get a lot of mayhem in the movie. Cop cars get stolen, there is a big dirt bike chase, another car chase, some boat chasing, and lots of crashes. Dynamite is tossed around in a manner that probably should have maimed folks, but they are okay. Roofs are torn off vintage (though not at the time) trucks and many cars explode. So, you can see why I tossed this in with my automotive mayhem marathon. There is even some romantic bonding while riding dirt bikes. That last one is for the ladies!

The cast is great and includes the already mentioned Dirk Benedict. Linda Blair plays Jenny and her father in law is played by the legendary Ben Johnson. Richard Farnsworth is the sheriff and Matt Clark is one of the bloodthirsty rednecks. You may not recognize that last name but if you watched drive-in flicks in the seventies, you will recognize him. This is a solid cast that is more than up to the challenge of bringing these characters to the screen.

Not a perfect movie but one that I think deserves a look. This one can be a challenge to locate but it is out there if you look hard enough. As of the writing of this review I couldn’t find it streaming on any of the major services but won’t be surprised if it shows up on YouTube at some point.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Texas Detour (1978)

The opening credits roll over brothers Clay and Dale along with their sister Sugar as they travel along in a groovy seventies van with Dale playing his guitar and singing a song. As soon as the credits finish, they get into a car chase where eventually the van is forced off the road by some criminals who steal their money as well as their ride. This sends the three off on foot where they meet up with a local named Beau (played by Anthony James) who offers them a ride if they can help him get his car running. They do and after an unhelpful visit to the sheriff’s office they end up working at the ranch owned by Beau’s father.

After some working the ranch montages and a bar fight, we see Beau chase down Sugar and rape her. This is the seventies and Texas Detour is a “hicksploitation” flick so that is par for the course. This sets Clay up to chase down Beau and beat the hell out of him. But the sheriff stops him before he does too much damage, though Beau is pissed off. Since his family runs the town, the sheriff can’t do much about it. After Clay beds Beau’s sister Claudia (played by Priscilla Barnes) and Beau is killed by someone else in a barfight things get crazy. Everyone blames Clay for the murder, despite having an alibi provided by Claudia which leads to one final car chase as the they try to escape the county with the sheriff and father of Beau and Claudia in hot pursuit.

Did he ever play a good guy?

I love these movies and their odd screwed up seventies’ logic. The rich family can get away with anything because they own everything. But their influence ends at the county line so all you have to do is get there or in this case jump over a roadblock! This same basic plot was used repeatedly in these cheap but entertaining drive-in flicks. Here they don’t screw the formula up as the movie plays out something like this. Car chase 1, dirt bike race, bar fight with hicks, horse vs. dirt bike race, bad thing happens (rape), another dirt bike race, and final car chase. You mix in some musical numbers and the working on the ranch montage, and you have yourself a movie. Simple but effective as something interesting is always happening from the opening credits to the final frame.

Love seeing familiar faces

The cast is filled with familiar faces including Patrick Wayne as Clay, R.G. Armstrong as Sheriff Burt, Anthony James as Beau (did he ever play a good guy?), and Cameron Mitchell as the pissed off patriarch of the powerful family. Of course, I’ve already mentioned Priscilla Barnes of Threes Company fame in her first starring role. This is a solid “B” cast bolstered with a few Hollywood veterans to round things out. I miss the days when you could get solid working character actors to show up and put in a good day’s work regardless of what kind of movie they were making. I think that is what is missing in today’s low budget flicks.

This isn’t a classic or even a great movie if I’m being honest. Texas Detour knows the formula, adheres to it, and in the end provides us with a fun way to kill an hour and a half. Not everything needs to be art or reinvent storytelling/filmmaking. Some movies are just meant to be a good time. With that in mind I recommend folks track down a copy and check this one out.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Checkered Flag or Crash (1977)

The drive-in theaters were filled with “car” movies for most of their existence. Though they really hit their stride in the seventies with flicks like Vanishing Point and Grand Theft Auto. I’ve watched just about all of them over the years so imagine how surprised I was to have found Checkered Flag or Crash. It stars Joe Don Baker, Larry Hagman, and Susan Sarandon as well as being shot in the Philippines. Car movie… check! Cast of actors I dig… check! Shot in one of my favorite locations for drive-in flicks… check! How have I never seen this before?

The story is very simple. Joe Don Baker is a driver who is nicknamed Walkaway because he is the only one that normally walks away from his many wrecks. He has been sponsored by a magazine to take part in a big rally race in the Philippines with the agreement that he takes a reporter along for the ride. What he doesn’t know is that it is a lady reporter played by Susan Sarandon. We also get a bunch of other characters including a pretty lady on a motorcycle, a French race car driver, a local driving a taxi, and a few more. I’m glossing over these because they don’t do much with them other than an occasional scene here and there. We don’t even find out what happens to any of them, though given the sheer number of crashes I’m thinking a lot of them died!

The race is being put on by Larry Hagman’s character. He is determined to finish the thing even after there is a flood and mudslide that forces him to choose a dangerous route where the racers will not only have to dodge each other but construction equipment as well. Why the rush? Well there is a toss away line about him owing “people” money that infers it may be the mob or some other organized criminal enterprise. Don’t worry though we never hear about it again. Heck they even hint that the promised prize money might not exist which is something else that is never resolved.

Checkered Flag or Crash has some serious issues. The plot is paper thin filled with, as I’ve mentioned above, far too many throwaway characters to pad the runtime. It would have been nice to see some of the subplots go somewhere, but that doesn’t happen at all. Even the main plot with Walkaway and the reporter doesn’t have a resolution. He basically is an ass to her leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere at one point, though she still cares about him. I suppose making your male lead be completely without redeeming qualities might have been a bad choice. I didn’t like any of the characters and that is an issue.

Most of the better car movies have human characters and a story that is set in and around the road/race/chase. Here it is all about staging the car crashes and stunts. There are a lot of them, though the way they are shot makes it difficult to follow the action at times. So not only do we not have much story to keep our attention what they try and hang their hats on, the stunts and racing, is also poorly executed. This is further hampered by them mostly using voiceovers from the actors as the cars roll by to tell the story.

Checkered Flag or Crash isn’t a good movie. I’m happy to have watched it as I’m a nerd for this sort of thing, but there are so many better options for casual fans that I can’t recommend it. Check out one of the other movies I’ve mentioned already or perhaps the more mainstream Cannonball Run or Gone in Sixty Seconds. These are way more entertaining.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Supervan (1977)

Automotive mayhem continues here at the site. Today’s review is for the seventies classic Supervan. In case you didn’t know there was a custom van craze back in the day where people would try to outdo one another with amazing paint jobs and interiors to what were plain old vans. That culture as well as the CB culture of the seventies features heavily in this one.

Our main character Clint is leaving the business his father runs to enter a big contest at Freakout, which is a huge van competition. He has a nice van, but there is a secret weapon. His friend has built a sweet custom van that runs on solar power called Vandora. Sadly, along the way he loses his van when he saves a beautiful young lady from some bikers. She is the daughter of the man running the convention who is also a big oil tycoon. Being that she is a runaway and Clint is getting busy with her it doesn’t make daddy too happy. The fact that Clint’s friend used big oil’s money to make Vandora, which again runs on solar energy, is strike two.

The remainder of the movie is basically a chase sequence as the bad guy sends his minions after Clint and tries to hide the solar van away so he can keep selling oil and making money. Against him the van crowd runs interference, talks on their CB radios, and generally party. We also get some fun with the bikers before the end credits roll.

Now the above might make it sound like this movie has a plot. In reality the story just serves to connect a few scenes together. A lot of the movie is just footage of people being silly and having fun at the Freakout. We get a wet t-shirt contest, frolicking, canoodling, dancing, game playing, and other general shenanigans. I think that much of this footage must have been shot at an actual event because it seems random and spontaneous. The scripted stuff is okay and fun. The formula of rebel versus the man is followed closely and the proper boxes are checked. There are attempts at humor which don’t always land but fit nicely in the overall cheesy feel of the flick.

The star of the movie is... Vandora!

Let me talk a bit about the feel of Supervan. I’m a child of the seventies and my father built and drove a couple custom vans during that decade. I have also spent time watching movies at the drive-in so I might be a bit biased here. This one gave me a real nostalgic feel taking me back to some memories that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. The van culture and the CB (my dad also had one of those) chat put a huge smile on my face. While the movie doesn’t have a great plot and is utterly predictable, I found myself having a lot of fun with it. Will you? I’m not sure but I thought it was worth mentioning because I’m going to recommend this one.

Vandora, which I suppose is the real star of the movie, was the brainchild of George Barris. He was the greatest car customizer ever and I’ll fight anyone that says different. If you think of a great movie or television car from the fifties and sixties, I can almost guarantee you that he was responsible for it. He did the Munster’s Coach, the Beverly Hillbilly’s truck, and of course his most famous work is the Batmobile. Vandora looks very cool, though also very uncomfortable to drive. But it gets the job done and does give the movie its central plot hook and draw.

I like this movie and I think that you might like it too. Though its not a slam dunk that will be the case. So, while I recommend Supervan I do so with the warnings listed above. If you do watch it drop me an email and let me know what you think.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer 

Corvette Summer (1978)

My deep dive on car movies continues as I take a look at this Mark Hamill flick made the year after Star Wars came out. Here he plays a high school senior named Kenny. We first see him with the rest of his classmates cruising a junkyard looking for a project car. He is a very talented artist and loves cars. He finds and saves a corvette right before it is to be crushed. Then we see he and the rest doing a killer custom job bringing the Vette back to life. At least it is what passes for killer in the seventies. The first night the students take it out for a drive it gets stolen.

The shop teacher, Mr. McGrath, tries to tell them it was just a commodity to be bought and sold. The insurance will pay for it so their efforts still helped the school. But Kenny was very attached to the car, so after graduating he goes looking for it. Ending up in Las Vegas he finds a “hooker in training” named Vanessa who becomes his girlfriend. He keeps having near misses with the car until he finally locates it. It is in the possession of a guy named Wayne who runs a car theft ring. This leads to some shenanigans before Kenny finally rolls back to his old high school to return it. Classes are in session, so I guess that summer is at an end.

Unlike some of the movies I’m going to cover for the Automotive Mayhem marathon this isn’t a ninety-minute-long car chase. I mean Kenny is chasing after the Corvette, but this is more about him meeting different people and growing up. There are people that he runs into along the way like Vanessa and a character referred to as Mr. Lucky, played by the late Dick Miller. This is just such a neat coming of age story that just so happens to have some cool vehicles in it. Again, being a car movie, we get to see some sweet rides in addition to the Corvette including a nice Camaro. Kenny also has to deal with disappointment with adults being dishonest, this was a made for the drive-in so the “you can’t trust anyone over thirty” crowd had to be appealed to.

There is only one big chase, and it happens at the end of the movie. Just one car gets crashed and there aren’t that many stunts. But again, this is a different kind of car movie. Why include it here? Corvette Summer is solidly set in and around car culture, so it just feels right. Plus, there is a bad ass van in the movie. If you have a bad ass custom van in your movie then it is going to get covered in the Automotive Mayhem marathon.

A few other things that I wanted to note about Corvette Summer. We get some excellent shots of the Las Vegas Strip in the seventies that I rather enjoyed. I’m a nerd for these little glimpses of the past that movies like this can provide. I’ve already mentioned Dick Miller, but this is a killer cast. Annie Potts is Venessa, Danny Bonaduce and Wendy Jo Sperber are a couple of his classmates. You might not recognize her name, but I promise you have seen her before. We also get Kim Milford who was in Laserblast. Hell, we even get to see Brion James as a henchman! My favorite though was a sleazy dishonest gas station owner that hires Kenny. I recognized him but couldn’t remember where from. His name is Phillip Bruns, and he was the drunken old doctor from Return of the Living Dead 2.

This is just a fun and breezy way to kill an hour and a half. I’ve loved this one from the first time I saw it and as a kid thought it was cool that Luke Skywalker had a corvette… I mean I was only nine years old so cut me some slack! I highly recommend Corvette Summer you won’t be disappointed.

 

Ó Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Grand Theft Auto (1977)

I haven’t covered nearly enough car movies for the site. The seventies were filled will all kinds of automotive mayhem, especially for the drive-in crowd. I thought I’d kick off my look at these movies with Grand Theft Auto. Produced by Roger Corman it was Ron Howard’s first directorial effort. Time to check it out.

Howard plays Sam a wholesome good guy who fell in love with a rich girl named Paula. They go to see her parents to tell them they are getting married, and they freak out. Her dad is running for governor and wants her to marry into the right family. They have already gotten her engaged to a rich boy named Collins Hedgeworth. They take away her keys and think that is that. But of course, this would be a very short movie if it were.

Paula sneaks out and takes the only other car available, her dad’s Rolls Royce. She and Sam head to Las Vegas to get hitched and her father freaks out. Not sure if he is more worried about her or the car! Since he is running for governor, he wants to keep this on the downlow so instead of calling the cops he sends private security after them. When that doesn’t work, he puts out a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward on her safe return. This if further complicated when old Collins Hedgeworth takes off after them and his mother panics and offers a reward for his safe return. This is basically an excuse to have a bunch of oddballs involved in what is for all intents and purposes an hour-long chase on screen.

My favorite part of Grand Theft Auto is the will they or won’t they wreck the Rolls. The movie keeps teasing you with close calls. It isn’t until the end that you find out if the movie is going to trash the classic. I won’t spoil it for you here. I also wanted to mention that the movie uses a trick that many of these car flicks use. There is a radio DJ who is following the progress of the Rolls and acts as a narrator. This helps fill in the blanks and keeps the audience on track between the crazy wrecks and stunts. As we dig further into these flicks you will see this again.

The stars of the movie...

I love this movie. The story is very simple and the characters likeable. There isn’t much character development but this is a car movie so who cares about that? We get plenty of crashes, stunts, funny characters, and great lines. This isn’t mean to be some new groundbreaking piece of art. I like the cast and it is filled with a ton of familiar faces. We get a couple of Corman regulars like Paul Bartel and Allan Arkush, as well as a lot of Howard’s friends and family. His dad Rance, brother Clint (a personal favorite of mine), and even his television mom Marion Ross appear! It was awesome to hear her swear and flip people off. Someone was certainly having fun. We even get an appearance from Paul Linke (Motel Hell) as snooty rich boy Collins Hedgeworth.  

You can tell that there is a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera. Not only does Howard show his future directing chops buy keeping things exciting and the action moving but he is helped by his editor. Normally I don’t mention editors by name in my reviews but with Grand Theft Auto I thought you might recognize the name Joe Dante. Corman had a hell of a group working with him in the seventies.

...the real star of the movie!

Now that I’ve talked about the cast, I have to tell you that the real stars of the movie are the cars. In addition to the Rolls Royce, we also get a vintage Dodge Charger, a nice little Volkswagen Beetle, and a sweet looking Porsche. These are just a few of the cars that we see on screen. One of my favorite things about these car flicks are looking at the classics that you don’t see on the road anymore. I’m an older guy so as a kid I remember the muscle cars driving around town all the time. It makes me nostalgic.

I’ve mentioned the stunts so let’s take a deeper look at them. There are multiple jumps, burn outs, and other such staples of car chases. Some of the highlights are a smashed chicken coop, dynamite being tossed at cars, a bridge that blows up, and of course they drive a car thru a house. My favorite though has always been the Rolls playing chicken with a helicopter. I noticed that there are a couple spots where they did stuff off screen. Once I think it is for a comedic reveal and the other because they couldn’t actually wreck that particular vehicle. The story wraps up with a demolition derby that sadly takes out many of the stars, the cars, of the movie.

I highly recommend you guys check out Grand Theft Auto. This has been and continues to be one of my favorite drive-in movies. Sadly, I never got to see it there, but it was in heavy rotation on the various late-night movie shows that I did watch.

 

Ó Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

 

 

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Maximum Overdrive is the single director credit for legendary writer Stephen King and is based on his short story Trucks. The action takes place at a truck stop inhabited by a motley crew of truck drivers, ex-con employees, and their sketchy boss. As things progress we add a bible salesman, a hitchhiker, and some newlyweds to the mix. They all must deal with machines coming to life with homicide on their minds. Soda machines, ATMs, lawnmowers, construction equipment, small planes, electric knives, video games, and yes big eighteen wheelers (aka. semi-trucks) go on the attack. The rest of the plot is our characters dodging the threats, arguing with each other, and eventually planning an escape to an island where there aren’t any roads or vehicles. People live and people die, some in awesome ways! 

This movie is a prime example of my philosophy of “not everything has to be art”. This story is very simple and to the point. There is a crawl at the beginning talking about an asteroid and radiation followed by a character talking about how it would be a good plan if you wanted to invade to “clean house”. This is followed up by another crawl talking about how a Russian weather satellite, which was armed with lasers and nukes, destroyed a UFO. I guess we are supposed to believe that this was some alien invasion, but none of that really matters. What does matter is we meet a bunch of likeable characters and watch them get picked off in horrible ways. King as director and writer executes this perfectly and it results in an entertaining experience.

There is a decent amount of gore as the machinery goes wild. A waitress has an electric knife tear into her arm, a soda can dents in a man’s head in a gruesome way, people are gunned down with an overabundance of bullet hits, several people are sent flying by trucks, and we see a kid get run over by a steam roller! That last one is my favorite. What I have the most fun with is how creative they had to get with the kills. This isn’t as simple as a zombie or slasher going after someone. Nope they had to find creative ways to put the characters in harms way so that the, sometimes immobile, machines can kill. That goes back to the script and writing, which of course is great as it is Stephen King after all. 

The cast is filled with lots of character actors that are good at their jobs and bring the characters to the screen. Pat Hingle, Yeardley Smith, and Leon Rippy are probably the most recognizable and best. The lead is Emilio Estevez who Hollywood tried to make into a leading man/action hero but is best in quirky projects like Maximum Overdrive. Everyone seems to be having fun and there is some scenery chewing, I’m looking at you Pat Hingle, but it all works. 

In the end this is the sort of movie that you shut your brain off for ninety minutes and enjoy. Don’t over think it and have fun with rocket launchers blowing stuff up, and cars running people over. Embrace the nutty chaos and you will have fun. If you think that you are able to do this then grab a copy and get to watching. 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Hell Van (2022)

I’ve always prided myself on being transparent about things here at the site so before I begin this review I want to let everyone know that I’m friends with the filmmaker who made Hell Van, Jorge Delarosa. I even had the pleasure of a set visit which I wrote up for Midnight Magazine a couple of years ago. I know that I can still be objective despite this, but I didn’t want anyone to think that I was “shilling” for the movie. I guess that is a spoiler of sorts since I’m clearly going to give Hell Van a positive review.

The story is deceptively simple. We have a firefighter who drives around in his red van burning down churches. Eventually he burns one down that is full of kids. When the locals finally corner him he kills himself right after a “hail Satan”. You guessed it the red panel van is the titular character! The chaos doesn’t end there as everyone who encounters the vehicle ends up dead or worse. The damn thing even drives itself off the salvage lot it was towed to and cruises around town. If you look inside something snaps and you do terrible things. Sometimes to others and sometimes to yourself. I’m trying to keep things vague here as to not spoil the best bits. Eventually the sheriff, played by director Delarosa, corners the thing at the local drive-in for a final confrontation. Though it doesn’t end like I was expecting.

You know I realize that I just wrote that I wasn’t going to spoil things but I don’t think I can properly sing the praises of Hell Van without doing so. With that in mind and if you don’t want the movie spoiled stop reading right now and track yourself down a copy. This is a great movie that I’m going to recommend. As of the writing of this review I don’t think it is available for purchase but that should change soon. Check out their website at https://www.slowmutants.com/ for updates. Now on with the good stuff.

I watch a lot of independent flicks and if you have read many of my reviews you know that one of my biggest complaints is that far too many filmmakers don’t have a fleshed-out story before they go off to make their movie. Hell Van has a very cool story with a beginning, middle, and end. It may seem odd that I’m patting them on the back for such a basic thing, but it’s a huge issue with indie filmmakers. Not only does this have a cohesive narrative but the characters are fleshed out with some history between them. We have a woman cheating on her husband, some drama between father and son, as well as marital issues. None of these slow the main plot of the killer van down, but it adds to the depth of the characters. You feel like these are real people, which makes what happens to them even more disturbing. Solid story with characters you care about is not limited by your budget only by the time you put in ahead of shooting. This is the way it should be done.

I also love how weird the ending gets with what I think is an asteroid or something like it smashing into the drive-in during the big finale. This goes hand in hand with the odd and twisted flashes of scenes that pop up now and then. These inserts set the tone and keep the audience off kilter without overwhelming the story and taking us away from the proceedings. This along with some odd camera angles and the red lighting used when people are in and around the van gives the proceedings a certain The Beyond feeling that as a big Fulci fan I dig. This very much feels like a late seventies early eighties movie.

The special effects work is stellar. There are some fun kills like a bullet to the head, a shotgun to the chest, some gut munching (yes, we get zombies!), and a guy gets sick and is mutated with what I think are teeth sprouting from his skin. That last one is very creepy and I got to watch the makeup get applied during my set visit. Toss in some self-mutilation with a creepy gag involving eyes being gouged out and you have a bloody fun time. They also do a couple exploding cars. Not the crappy CGI that I see in most independent movies but actual cars blowing up and burning! Toss in a couple people getting set on fire and you have a movie that is trying to do things in a very “old school” manner that you just don’t see anymore. Hell, we get a couple of actual models used for a burning church and for the tracking shot of the asteroid thing hitting the drive-in. I loved this!

This is a fantastic movie that I absolutely loved. Again, I don’t think that I’m being biased and if I had issues with Hell Van, I would voice them. Before watching the movie I sat down and literally created a list with check boxes that I wanted to see or for some not see. When the end credits rolled I had all the boxes checked and couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend ninety minutes. This is the sort of filmmaking that we as fans should support. I promise that you won’t be disappointed with this one. Again hit their website up at https://www.slowmutants.com/ for more information.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Cannonball! (1976)

There was a brief craze of car based drive-in movies that cropped up in the seventies. These flicks ranged from the serious like Vanishing Point all the way to the absurd like Death Race 2000. Cannonball falls more towards the latter which shouldn’t be a surprise since it is made by the same director, Paul Bartel, and was made the following year. With that in mind lets dive right into some more automotive carnage.

Our main character in Cannonball is Coy Buckman, played by David Carradine. We meet him as he is having a nightmare where he is driving a car only to be shot thru the forehead. He wakes up and then sneaks out to the garage to find his best friend Zippo working the car from his dreams. There is a big race, the Cannonball, coming up and they are getting the car ready. The winner gets a cool 100k and becomes an immediate legend. This brings together a motley crew including a German professional race car driver, a van full of lovely ladies, a surfer couple, and an old enemy from Coy’s past. Once they hit the road hijinks ensue.

I think that Cannonball is trying to be a funny movie, but the tone is so off that it doesn’t work, at least for me. There is some light comedy that is immediate followed by someone getting blown up or smashed under a car! I’m not talking slapstick stuff where we see them walk away with there hair all frazzled… these characters die! While that works well in the odd dystopian setting of Bartel’s previous effort, Death Race 2000, here it fails. That is probably because it is set in the real world and I just couldn’t get past the fact that with this many bodies dropping the characters would be able to just walk away at the end.

A more important question is how are we even supposed to like these characters? The best example of this is Bennie, played by the always awesome Dick Miller. The character is introduced with his henchmen planting something on the German’s car. We later find out that he is Coy’s brother and has a ton of money bet on him to win. So of course, he is going to have all these complicated schemes that will lead to fun shenanigans, right? Nope he just straight up kills people while the movie plays it up as if he is comic relief. I found that rather jarring. It would have been much better if they had just made him a villain and given the movie a darker tone. Instead we get other bits of comedy like the singing cowboy broadcasting from a Dodge Charger, the van of lovely ladies “dealing” with some cops, and the continually more banged up Lincoln Continental gag. I really don’t know what to think about this one.

They straight up killed that dude!

This was a New World Pictures production, so we get the Corman regulars showing up. In addition to those that I’ve already mentioned we also get actresses Mary Wornov and Belinda Balaski. Directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush make small appearances. Roger Corman even shows up for a short scene as a district attorney trying to shut the race down. Though hands down the best and craziest cameos have director Paul Bartel, who also plays the mobster taking all the bets from Miller’s character, in a scene with a couple of henchmen. They are played by an uncredited Sylvester Stallone and Martin Scorsese! All these people have connections to Roger Corman and the low budget flicks he was cranking out as either a director or later a producer.

I like Paul Bartel’s movies. The aforementioned Death Race 2000 as well as Eating Raoul and the criminally ignored Private Parts are great movies. His stuff is always quirky as he has a unique style. I’m not sure if it just doesn’t fit this kind of movie or if he needed to go completely dark or light with this one. Cannonball doesn’t work for me and I can’t recommend it.

© Copyright 2020 John Shatzer