America’s population is kept in check by their favorite reality competition show. The biggest ratings get the biggest payoffs and reality TV has gotten too real. The film also introduced the concept of minority privilege: A fertile field where anyone would just die to be buried. In the world of Death Race 2000, neo-Nazis are a key demographic and a formidable voting bloc.
He may only have half a face and half a chest, but he’s got all the guts in the world.Įxcept for the guts he leaves on America’s highways and by-ways.
Frankenstein lost a leg in 1998 and an arm in 1999. Carradine’s Frankenstein is ripped up, wiped out, battered, shattered, creamed, and reamed. Frankenstein the indestructible was the sole survivor of the titanic pile-up of ’95. His old man, John Carradine, played Count Dracula in The House of Frankenstein and The House of Dracula and David is a credit to his monster predecessors.įrankenstein the legend is the only two-time winner of the Transcontinental Road Race. That’s why he was the only survivor besides Frankenstein, played by the late, great David Carradine. Stallone’s Machine Gun Joe starts the race off right – pulling in 40 points for running over his own teenage mechanic. Teenagers pull in 40 points, and toddlers under 12 get 70 points, and anyone over 75 years old is worth 100 points. Get ready to ride.įor the competition at the center of the film, they upped the ante. This is the world we’re choosing, people. Does that sound familiar? We’ve already seen how the President feels about the disabled. They get 10 points for a man, 20 for a woman, 40 for a baby, 70 for putting the elderly out their misery, and 100 points for “feebs,” which is the politically correct term for disabled people in the world that followed the World Crash of ’79.
“Then the thought came to me: why not have the drivers kill pedestrians and get points from that?” Watch Death Race 2000 on Amazonĭrivers get more points for running down pedestrians than they do speed, unless they drive fast enough to ensure a painless death. “I started out with simply the fact that this was a futuristic car-racing picture where drivers try to knock each other off the road,” Corman said. But while most races are about speed, in Death Race 2000, it’s the journey and the collateral damage that puts that ornament on the hood. Violent entertainment goes “all the way back to the gladiatorial games and the bread and circus of the Romans,” Corman said. Death Race 2000 was one of the granddaddies to the glut of the dystopian fiction that overwhelm contemporary fiction, but Corman isn’t quick to take the blame. Slightly more than half of America wants to find the off-ramp. Progressives are now cringing at the thought of what kind of apocalyptic future a Trump presidency will usher, when just a few years ago, millenials of all ages and in all districts welcomed the Tracker Venom of surrender. The world’s media is captivated by the Miss America-contestant-worthy presidential aides, the country is experiencing a perennial rebound and reality TV is so real you just might get run over. The country is ruled by a wacky despot who likes things big and fast. The legendary filmmaker spoke with Den of Geek about the pileup that awaits.ĭeath Race 2000 was a prescient satirical look into a future when satire wasn’t our everyday norm. Corman and his indomitable American International Pictures called all this back in 1975, before there was even The Gong Show. Yes, it was also being said about his competition, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but she didn’t have a reality TV show and she was ultimately fired.
The same was being said about Donald Trump in the run-up to his presidential upset in 2016.
Millions hate him,” intones the announcer Junior Bruce while introducing Sylvester Stallone’s invulnerable character in Roger Corman’s dystopian cult race movie Death Race 2000.