ATLRetro

By Mark Arson, Contributing Blogger

DEATH RACE 2000 (1975); Dir: Paul Bartel; Starring David Carradine, Mary Woronov, Sylvester Stallone; Sat. March 26;  SPLATTERDAY NIGHT LIVE Stage Show at 9:30 pm; Screening at 10 PM; Plaza Theatre; $10.

DEATH RACE 2000 is one of my favorite films of all time, and I could probably stop at that. But I also could talk about this movie for hours, so I’ll meet you wonderful readers halfway. I was tempted to watch the recent remake with Jason Statham just as a reference point, but having heard about the differences between the two films beforehand I decided to skip it. Why? Because killing people for points has been removed in the remake, entitled simply DEATH RACE. Now, the concept hardly even seems to make a difference in the original film (it is implied that finishing first means more than scoring the most anyway), but DEATH RACE 2000 is first and foremost a dystopian sci-fi film, and in this case, the point that drives the state of the world home is that people are watching other people being run over by cars on TV.

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