review: DEATH RACE 2000

Buena Vista  //  Buy from Amazon.com Rev up your motors and join David Carradine ("Kill Bill" series) and Sylvester Stallone ("Rocky") as they drive in a futuristic race where the idea is to run over people! It's winner take all until one man breaks the rules and fights back. Story by IB Melchior. Written by Robert Thom and Charles B. Griffith. Directed by Paul Bartel (director of the cult classic "Eating Raoul"). I still vividly recall the first time I ever bore witness to the unbelievable (and literal) on-screen carnage that is "Death Race 2000" - I had never seen anything like it, and was shocked that something like this came out of the 70s (a decade I had previously written off to not having anything valuable to contribue to my penchant for b-movies.) The crazy story, unbelievable characters and the grim & gory action sequences blew me away and the film became one of my faves before I was even halfway through watching it. For the longest time, the nice VHS release was the best version out there, as the cheap-o DVD release that was floating around (or maybe just up in Canada?) was terrible, looking like it had been bootlegged off of someone's coat hanger aerial antenna television. Thankfully, when Buena Vista signed on to release many of Roger Corman's most classic films to disc, they saw fit to give "Death Race 2000" the special edition treatment -- and the results are spectacular. Finally, we get widescreen, commentaries, featurettes, and the original (laughable) trailer -- woo-ha! This is a true classic in every sense of the word - early performance by Stallone, classic performance by Caradine, fantastic effort by Corman, lots of fun for all. Go get it! Video This special edition re-release sports a lovely 1.78:1 (16x9) anamorphic transfer, finally presenting this film in its widescreen glory. While the picture is grainy at times, given the age of this film, and its very low budget at the time, all things considered this is a spiffy looking print that any b-movie fan will squeal in delight over! Audio The sound mix is a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix, and while that's hardly anything to get excited about, it is a very clean and solid sound presentation, so no complaints here. Extras commentary track w/ Roger Corman & Mary Woronov "Playing the Game - Looking Back at Death Race 2000" featurette trailers Closing Thoughts True genre classic given the special edition treatment + some entertaining extras = must-have addition to any self-respecting b-movie fan's collection!