Death Race 2000

One of the first movies I saw when we originally got HBO in the late 70's was this fine motion picture. Released in 1975, it was an early Sylvester Stallone movie of a cross country race where racers ran over and killed pedestrians for points to win. It's morbid, it's horrible, it's bad but in a good way.

I was checking the on-screen TV guide tonight and then noticed it was on DirecTV Free 101. I decided to watch it as I hadn't seen it for more than 20 years. I think I can still recite most of it line by line like I could from the multiple times I've seen Smokey and the Bandit. As I watch it, I can't help but get plenty of good belly laughs.

In the beginning when the race is about to start, Stallone who plays the bad guy, gets booed by the audience. He responds by taking a sub-machine gun and shoots at the crowd.

In another scene, a group of 3 punks try to play chicken with one of the racers who will undoubtedly try to run them over. They open a man hole so they can escape quickly. The first punk goes underground, followed quickly by the second person. The second person, unbeknowst to the third guy, closes the man hole. This left the third guy out there by himself. The racer comes around the corner and the third guy tries to jump straight into the man hole. Too late. "Oh Shit!" he says only moments before he's run over. Next, the two other guys stick their heads out of the man hole to see what happened. Another racer (Stallone, as "Machine Gun" Joe Vaturbo) comes from the opposite direction and runs them over too!!

At the end of the movie, the hero, named "Frankenstein" played by David Carridine, runs into the platform where the US president gave a speech and kills him.

Good stuff, man!!

Tonight on Free 101, they cleaned up all the profanity and nudity. Every time someone cusses, they bleep it out with the sound of a car horn. All in all, it's still worth watching.