Race With the Devil
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
There are certain movies I love that I call Guilty Pleasures—movies that—for whatever reasons—are maligned for their exploitive subject matter, poor productions, or for just being low-brow affairs. But I love them just the same, for any number of reasons.
One such guilty pleasure for me is Race with the Devil. I first saw it at a drive-in theatre in 1975, and its cheap B-movie action thrills reached out from the screen, grabbed hold of me, and have never let me go.
What’s it about? How’s this for a delicious mash-up of popular movie genres in the early 1970s? Take one scoop of post-Exorcist devil cult movies. Mix in a dollop of post-Easy Rider, counter-culture motorcycle movies. Then add a dash of Deliverance with a plot about four people traveling across Texas in an RV, who have the misfortune of witnessing a late-night devil worship ceremony near their campground. And then they have to make a run for it when a pack of Satan-crazed yokels come after them.
Demonic good-old boys armed with shotguns and plaid shirts.
If you can stand more delicious, the movie also stars actor Peter Fonda—the lead in Easy Rider. His presence here helps turn the movie into a top-shelf cocktail of feverish car chases, an RV park that seems to be located on the highway to hell, and country cops who just won’t believe decent city people who whine to them about being terrorized by demonic good-old boys armed with shotguns and plaid shirts.
The only way that I could possibly love this movie any more is if it also featured a Waylon Jennings theme song. But let’s be fair: paying Waylon would have cost far too much money, and Race with the Devil is a valentine to low-budget efficiency.
In fact, the only way the producers were able to afford a star like Peter Fonda was to offer him a share of any profits that the movie might make at the box office in lieu of paying him a salary. Fonda took that deal, not just for the financial gamble, but also because the producers agreed to give the same deal to the great Warren Oates, who was cast in the film as well. Fonda and Oates were good friends in real life and making the movie was a way for them to hang out together and maybe make a little money in the process. It turned out to be a savvy move. Race With the Devil was such a hit on the drive-in and grindhouse circuits that Fonda and Oates made a bundle from the film’s profits.
I give Race with the Devil three Guilty Pleasure stars out of four.
