Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975): USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed on DVD.

It is always fun to discover films that have fallen through the cracks of the mainstream and only register as cult films, especially, when they have as much creativity as Paul Bartel’s Death Race 2000.

Death Race 2000 is about a cross country race where the object is not only to finish first, but to hit, and kill, as many people as possible to score points.  Different people count for different points, for example, the highest point totals are given for children and the elderly.  The contestants in the race are colorful characters like Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, played by a pre Rocky Sylvester Stallone, female Nazi Mathilda the Hun, played by Roberta Collins, and the main character and people’s choice, Frankenstein, played by David Carradine, a man presumably put back together by Swiss surgeons.  The race is the country’s favorite sport, satisfying the people’s craving for blood, much like the Romans’ at the Coliseum watching the gladiators.

The film is pure black humor, exploitation fun and much more creative than Hollywood tends to be these days.  Perhaps, it is the low budget that makes the filmmaker compensate with more interesting characters and story, but the film works as entertainment and as satire on an increasingly violent, and violence loving society, both today and in the wake of Vietnam.  Despite a subpar ending, the film is a real gem of the seventies and should not be missed.