In the far future year 2000, twenty-one years after the crash of ’79, the annual cross-country race is about to begin. The competitors include fan favorite, Frankenstein (David Carradine), gangster, “Machine Gun” Joe (Sylvester Stallone), Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins), and Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov). To win, all they have to do is cross the finish line first; that and mow down as many pedestrians as they can.
Produced by the king of low budgets, Roger Corman, and directed by the always bizarre Paul Bartel, Death Race 2000 is a dystopian comedy that takes jabs at modern culture, but then tosses away any meaning in favor of the pure joy of cars running over people. And it is a lot of fun.
What surprises me is that there are so few films about flattening slow individuals under the wheels of hotrods. Has anyone ever gotten into a car without thinking, “Hey, I could take out that kid over there.” It’s universal humor (among those with cars).
When played for laughs, this is topflight drive-in entertainment. There are announcers cheerfully giving color commentary and reading off the points for babies verses old men. There are pedestrians who run in front of the cars as a game, and invalids who are wheeled onto the road for “Euthanasia Day.”
Even with its small budget, the race action is fast and exciting, several notches up from most big budget car chases. Too bad it all looks washed out. Plus, there’s a fist fight between Carradine and Stallone, which is not the height of choreography, but amused me as Stallone was beaten to a pulp. If only that could have happened more often in his later films.
The pauses at the end of race-days gives an excuse for a few gratuitous breast shots. There’s not much flesh, but enough for a mindless 1975 flick.
Unfortunately, the end is played seriously, with good, moral folks working to change the corrupt government and end the killing. Who wants to see that? Bodies made into pancakes, that’s where the kicks are.
Sure it’s violent, but that’s the way we like it.