Death Race 2000 (1975)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Death Race 2000 (1975) – P. Bartel

Paul Bartel’s low budget cult films don’t usually attract name actors (unless Mary Woronov counts!), so it is a surprise to see David Carradine (post-Kung Fu) and Sylvester Stallone (pre-Rocky) here. Of course, the film is in bad taste:  it’s the future and the biggest entertainment on TV is a cross-country car race where participants score bonus points by killing innocent bystanders (more points for kids and the elderly). The cars and costumes are Seventiestastic! But there’s a twist this year – a group of resistance fighters is sabotaging cars and trying to capture the favourite, Frankenstein (Carradine); they’ve even planted one of their own in his car, as the navigator (Simone Griffeth).  The rebels want to end the reign of the lifetime president. But, hey, no one watches this film for the plot – instead, they want jokes in bad taste (with nudity and phony violence) that probably seemed pretty outrageous for 1975.  In the end, it’s nowhere near as great as the director’s amazing Eating Raoul but it’s certainly passable, if you’re looking for this sort of film.