I may have mentioned at some point that I was listening to How Did This Get Made, the podcast about bad movies. I enjoy it, and I like watching the movies they feature on it. When they featured The Wraith, and then when The Wraith was available free on Netflix, a small part of me celebrated. I hate how a lot of these films they do are not available for free online. I refuse to spend money right now. I'm ultra-cheap.
The Wraith is a surprisingly high production car racing movie from the 80's. It continues my 1986 marathon, about 2 years after I initially started my 1986 marathon. Wow, that's fucking weird dude, I remember startling this marathon like it was yesterday. I'm getting old man, time is passing faster and faster. I also had a bad thought when I signed onto the Blogspot site today. I had an inevitable feeling like this blog was over. I hope it's not, I hope I continue, but somehow....I don't think it's destined to live much longer.
But let's not live in the future, let's live in the now. In the now, 31 years ago, Charlie Sheen, Randy Quaid, Sharilyn Fenn, and Nick Cassavetes starred in The Wraith. The Wraith is about an alien force that comes to town in Arizona, in the form of a sleek black roadster car. The evil gang of baddies see the car and want it. They challenge the wraith to a race, the loser gives up their car. The Wraith starts to kill all the members of the gang in these races, forcing them off the road in crashes. This is all pursued by Randy Quaid as the local police. Charlie Sheen is a seemingly unconnected drifter who starts wooing the girl of the leader of the street gang.
The movie consists of pretty well done, highly produced race scenes. Crazy songs play in the background, either established classics or songs that missed the mark I guess and faded into 80s obscurity. There's tons of race scenes, and the cars are very cool. The titular Wraith is a concept car, a Dodge from the 80's. I tried to upload a photo but fucking blogspot is being a bitch. Google it.
The movie proceeds, it's very simple and yet never boring. Seriously this movie just flew right by, and I liked it a lot. Very well done, lots of deaths and explosions. There's a sense of mystery to this thing, and we're not sure what exactly is The Wraith or anything for quite a long time. In the end, some things are explained, but some are wisely left as a mystery and never explained fully. I think the basic idea is fine though: we're left with a dim idea of what happened and why, and I think it's a near flawless 80s romp.
Four classic action sci fi stars.
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