When my wife asked me to change the brake light in her car, I played it cool. “Sure, babe. Whatever.” OK, I wasn’t that smooth, but the poker face remained. After a couple tutorial videos and a few false starts, I did it! I was practically a grease monkey! Next stop, pit crew at the Indy 500! I know very little about cars, but if movies have taught me anything, they’re cool, sexy, and fast. Really fast. From the early silents all the way to The Fast and the Furious movies, automobiles have been an integral cog in the plot wheel of many a movie. Car chases and races in particular provide a propulsive ‘oomph’ to what could be an otherwise mundane viewing experience. There’s a delectable sense of danger in knowing these ultra-fast man-made machines are carrying humans at breakneck speeds and could be destroyed at any moment. Racing is often used in movies as a redemptive act. The hero driver suffers a loss or a tragedy during the big race and now they must overcome their fears and strap in once again. Redemption takes a backseat to all-out revenge in Mike Marvin’s bizarre but undeniably entertaining 1986 fantasy feature, The Wraith.
Roger Ebert often referred to the “Idiot Plot” when he spoke of movies featuring characters who act like idiots. All these people need to do is ask a simple question or talk about their problem for 2 minutes and the movie would be over. To be clear, these folks aren’t what The Simpsons referred to as “duh-duh idiots.” They’re relatively “normal” people. I put ‘normal’ in quotations since the characters in The Wraith do and say insane things. What’s curious about this film is that it’s difficult to decide whether a majority of it is filler since you can see the twist a mile away, or if the very purpose of the movie is the gratifying sight of bad people getting their comeuppance. The movie is about second chances, but it’s also a convoluted delivery system for cars going “smashy-smashy.”
We see a pair of headlights coming right at us out of the darkness. Flash! Bang! Our title is revealed in fabulous chrome letters. Bright lights resembling comets soar through the Arizona desert in the dead of night, being sure to stay on the right side of the road. Safety first. They meet at a crossroads and another FLASH! BANG! A helmeted driver, dressed in all black, stands beside a Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor, the highest paid member of the cast. Numbers vary, but it’s reported that the car cost 1.5 million dollars. The camera pans across the car’s smooth surface, practically leering.
Mike Marvin’s screenplay is a strange beast. It’s clearly a personal story told with real heart and passion for its main characters. The ‘good guys’ are presented as sweetness personified. They’re practically out of a fairy tale; delivering inspirational, quasi-philosophical dialogue. This innocent quality is held in sharp contrast to the antagonists. Although not completely devoid of basic human emotion, they act as though they’re in a live-action cartoon. It seems like Marvin has made the leader a ruthless, calculating monster and surrounded him with the most extreme examples of gang member stereotypes. Most of them utter phrases no human being would ever let pass their lips. That’s not to say these lines aren’t great. In fact, aside from its action scenes, the most enjoyable part of this entire supersonic enterprise is hearing what comes out of these character's mouths. Calling the ‘bad guys’ antagonists is only partially correct.
Yes, they’re constantly making things difficult for our heroes, but most movies depict the antagonists as having some kind of upper-hand on their competition. Here, they’re constantly on the defensive and rarely in anything resembling control. The main issue with the script is that we already know what’s going on so there’s little suspense to the proceedings. A sharp-eyed viewer might clock the plot twist way too early or maybe a casual movie watcher takes a bit more time to work things out on their own. In The Wraith, there’s a mysterious figure in black with supernatural powers. We know who it is already. A group of people committed a terrible crime. We know who did it. Marvin’s decision to let the audience, but not the characters, know what's going on is a bold move which makes the film work more as a countdown than a plot with unexpected twists and turns.
We meet ‘the gang’ on a dark road as they stop a cute couple with a sweet ride. When the guy asks what the leader, Packard Walsh (future director of The Notebook and son to John and Gena, Nick Cassavetes), wants, Walsh replies, “Let’s just say it’s pink.” Whether or not this is an intentionally shocking use of double entendre or if Marvin had no intention of calling into question whether ‘pink’ meant pink slips or the possibility of rape, it’s an indicator of the kind of dialogue we can expect rolling ahead. Packard and his “road pirates” troll the streets of their small desert town, challenging unlucky drivers to unfair races and making off with their cars at the conclusion. This is the most threatening non-rape-based gang I’ve ever seen. They take the woman hostage while her boyfriend races Packard, but they have a code-of-conduct which seems to threaten violence, both sexual and not, yet never delivers on that promise. This motley crew of ragamuffins consists of brake fluid-drinking nut job Skank (David Sherrill), his simpleton buddy Gutterboy (John Bozian), first to die Oggie (Griffin O’Neal), Minty (Chris Nash), who is just there, and most importantly, Rughead, an Eraserhead-haired, thick glasses-wearing dweeb played by the always delightful Clint Howard.
The following morning, Keri Johnson (Sherilyn Fenn) is on her way to the local watering hole. By the way, I don’t mean a bar. I mean there’s a hole that has water in it, and kids swim and sunbathe there. Fenn was still a few years away from her greatest triumph, Twin Peaks, and seven away from 1993, the year her movie career took a permanent hit with Fatal Instinct, Three of Hearts, and the legendary and controversial Boxing Helena, a movie for which Kim Basinger took a major financial hit just to avoid. Jake (Charlie Sheen) rides up on his bike wearing a shirt with buttons but he hasn’t found them yet. She takes an instant liking to him but Packard shows up before he can give her a lift. Packard reveals himself to be a control freak who regards Keri as his property.
Cassavetes’ performance is rather fascinating. In many ways, it’s the right choice that he underplays when he’s surrounded by the comic strip villain characters that make up his gang. The role, as written, could be played with great, evil gusto but he goes for a naturalistic approach. Whether or not this is due to his famous parent’s history of playing realistic but very dysfunctional characters is uncertain. Packard rules his cadre of thugs with an iron fist but throughout lacks a ‘hands-on’ approach to figuring out who this stranger is that’s putting the moves on ‘his girl.’
I’m not going to complain about an Arizona town having no beach, but the rock face these kids are laying on can’t be very comfortable. Billy (Matthew Barry, future casting director for Cassavetes) happens upon Jake, whom he notices has odd whip marks on his back. He calls him “bro” and gets mighty talkative, mighty quick. He explains that he works with Keri at the local burger joint, Big Kay’s, and that she was his dead brother Jamie’s girlfriend. Calling Packard a “genetic misfire,” he warns Jake to watch his back. Jake’s super chill and chats her up anyways. The rafts they float around on are both blue and look as though they were rented. Packard tells Skank and Gutterboy to check the plates on Jake’s bike (which leads to nothing), and advises Skank to “get rid of that zombie-piss you're drinkin' before it turns you into a mushroom.” Packard’s continuous refusal to simply march up to Jake and tell him to stay away from his girl contributes to the “idiot plot” notion of the movie. He merely watches from a distance, refusing to act.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, Jake is the resurrected spirit of Jamie. It’s all but spelled-out for us, but the movie continues to chug along despite it being quite obvious that the mysterious driver will turn out to be Jake. We’re treated to some red-hued flashbacks of Jamie getting murdered and then it’s on to Big Kay’s, where the outfits are skimpy and the burgers are hot. Really, those burgers do look good but the waitresses’ outfits look like a prototype for Hooters on wheels. Billy tries to drive Keri home but she’s constantly being stalked by Packard. This being the 80’s, the word “faggot” is liberally used to disparage Billy, but before it gets physical, the Turbo Interceptor shows up. You can practically see the gang members’ jaws drop and their mouths start to salivate. They immediately challenge the driver to a race.
Oggie takes on the Turbo in the first of a series of very well-shot race sequences. He’s no match for the tricked-out Dodge and after losing him around the corner, Oggie smashes right into a suddenly parked Interceptor, causing a massive explosion and tumbling down the hill in a fiery mess. A strange metal brace that had previously been seen running along the driver’s arms and legs glows then disappears amongst the wreckage. This was later explained by the director himself that as the wraith gets his revenge on those who wronged him, he becomes stronger, hence his ability to cast off the braces. The Turbo, by the way, reappears, no worse the wear.
Sheriff Loomis (Oscar-nominee and noted cuckoo bird Randy Quaid) arrives to chew the scenery and yell at the youngsters. Some of the best dialogue belongs to Quaid and he speaks it with relish, proving what a fine actor he is when he can deliver lines like “time to drain the drug overdose sloshin' above your eyebrows and tell me who the dude was drivin' that other car” with a straight face. When nobody has anything to say, he inquires whether their “veins are bloated with brain eradicator.” An odd choice is to have Keri crying. Although I suppose seeing anyone die is upsetting, the fact is these guys are scum who constantly harass her and Billy, so although she didn’t wish for him to die, it seems wrong to be so sad at the loss of dear, homophobic Oggie. When the cops retrieve Oggie’s body, which should be nothing but ash and bone, they find him perfectly preserved, save for being basically frozen and missing his eyeballs. Keri wants nothing to do with Packard, but he says they’re like “blood brothers,” a strange choice of words, and demonstrates his love and commitment by squeezing his switchblade and rubbing blood on Keri’s lip. Although the actions are over-the-top, Cassavetes again plays it for real. It’s not that the performance is brilliant. It’s more that it’s unexpectedly controlled and intelligent.
The fellas shake off the loss of Oggie and retire to their chop shop, which looks amazing. How they maintain this place is beyond me. It’s sparkling clean and seems to have all of the latest accoutrement for car repair/stripping. These fun little toys aren’t long for this world as the wraith bursts through the door, carrying a gun Rughead describes as a “kidney buster.” Packard seems non-plussed, or possibly narcotized as the cars and engine blocks are annihilated by bullets. The futuristic gun is a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun, which looks so unusual that it feels like an alien weapon. The gunman disappears and we get a reference to The Thing (1982) with the line “He’s weird and pissed off!” There are many films that Marvin pays homage to, including the Mad Max movies, High Plains Drifter (1973), and Charlie Sheen’s father’s film The California Kid (1974).
Quaid tracks down Skank and Gutterboy at an auto wreckage yard and the dialogue has to be heard to be believed. Gutterboy complains about their “constipational rights” being trampled on. Loomis wants to get to the bottom of who is disposing of Packard’s boys. He gets fed up and states quite clearly, “You listen good, Skank. I know it's gonna be hard with your melon on chemical overload, but there's a killer out there and I'm gonna track the hairball down. So, when you two crater-heads get finished mining for nose gold and get a relapse of memory, you let me know, huh?” Way later, there’s some nice attention to detail when we do indeed see Skank “mining for nose gold.”
Packard gets an amusing note saying the driver is on Lookout Mountain Road, which is funny because I grew up nowhere near Arizona but there was a Lookout Mountain Road right outside my neighborhood. Perhaps the wraith was killing the bullies at my local pool? Rughead gets a load of the wraith’s engine, which crackles with electricity, and he practically pees his khakis. Another guy is killed but this time the police set up a road block. The Turbo Interceptor hesitates, as if judging the situation, then blows right through, taking the fronts of both cars with him. It’s at this point you may have noticed that we’re not seeing Charlie Sheen all that much. The assumption is that he’s the man in the black suit, but there’s no guarantee that’s him.
I’m reminded of the prequel series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015). Director David Wain had less than a day to film all of Bradley Cooper’s scenes since he was A) now a huge movie star, and B) in town for the Oscars so only available for that one day. It’s pretty flawless when you watch the show since his appearances are spread out across each episode so well that you assume he must have been there for the entire shoot. For Charlie this was his breakthrough year, so it does seem that he may have been needed elsewhere as there are long stretches without any of that Sheen charm.
This is unlikely, but due to the fantastical elements of the film, a theory could be posed that this is the final death dream of Jamie before he died that night. After Packard watches Keri fraternize with Jake once again and does nothing, he’s rammed from behind by the wraith. Like Superman and Clark Kent, Jake and the wraith are never in the same place at the same time. Packard rolls into a cemetery, where the man in black stands by a headstone bearing the name ‘Packard Walsh.’ This spells bad news for Packard, but how is this even possible? A car that regenerates is one thing, but how did the wraith get a headstone made? There’s the joy of supernatural stuff bewildering the bad guys, but some bits stretch believability, even in this berserk world.
Whether he’s destined for that shallow grave or not, Packard needs to take a load off. We find him romancing a local because even though Keri is forbidden from even talking to another guy, the same rules don’t apply to him. Loomis steps through the beaded curtain to give Packard the blue balls and haul him downtown. The scene takes an odd turn as Loomis asks the girl if she’s all right. Prior to this, it had been a pretty steamy scene and she appeared to be enjoying herself, kissing Packard. Now, with Loomis around, she seems to be slightly upset and nervous. Maybe it’s just the presence of a cop, but she acts as though a rape was interrupted.
The movie continues to amble along. There’s no lag in momentum, just no mystery and only the anticipation of who the wraith will kill next. Keri and Jake hook up at the water hole in a sweet scene made only slightly odd because of one shot behind Sheen which is very overexposed, leading some people to believe this was a body double. Most other shots do appear to be him though, so I don’t think so. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are being chastised by Sheriff Loomis. Some choice dialogue includes “If you guys try to take the law into your own hands, and that killer turns up dead, I'm gonna see you all sniffin' cyanide in the Arizona gas chamber.” He’s been meticulously snipping at a folded piece of paper, finally revealing a trio of headless paper men.
Back at the shop, Packard gives an ‘atta boy’ to what’s left of his crew and heads off. We get the title of the movie when Rughead seems to have figured out the killer driver is really a wraith, and not just any wraith, but the ghost of Jamie come back for revenge. He heads out to his car just in time for, speak of the devil, the wraith to head straight into the shop and take out Skank and Gutterball. Good thing too since Gutterball said he was a “four-day virgin” and some poor young thing was spared. The shop practically evaporates in a hail of wood chips and flames. Bodies are found intact but missing their eyes again; two black holes remaining in their skulls. Rughead explains his theory to Loomis and even reveals Packard and his crew were the ones who killed Jamie. I wonder whether Rughead died in a previous draft but Howard has such likeable energy he was spared. He comes off as innocent even though he’s still at least an accessory.
Loomis grills Billy at the Big Kay, where we find out very little besides the fact that Randy Quaid loves his sugar as he pours an exorbitant amount into his coffee. Packard shows up to kidnap Keri and beat the hell out of Billy, who calls the looky-loos a bunch of “chickenshits” for not helping. Packard confesses to the murder of Jamie even though Keri should’ve known and she’s able to convince him they have no future. She gets out and the Turbo appears for one final race. The police get wind and there’s a complex chase involving the cops, the boys, and a car carrier. Packard runs into the wraith and explodes. Quaid calls off the search since there’s no one left for the spirit to kill.
We get to the final two scenes. The driver magically changes into Jake with some cheesy effects. He invites her to come with him, but he has one more errand. We find out why Billy was instinctively calling Jake his “bro” because when he’s given the Turbo Interceptor, he finally gets it. Jake rides off on his bike and Billy calls out to him in arguably the film’s most famous moment. “Jake! Jake! Jamie!!” It’s silly but the movie is so blatantly schmaltzy that it actually works, as long as you’ve gotten over how hilarious it is at the same time. Jake picks up Keri and apparently takes her to the other side. Guess she was done being alive.
I first saw this film on the lower half of a double bill with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984). I thought it was a cheesy time-killer. The second time around, its straight-faced commitment to young love and redemption won me over. It’s still bonkers and comes off as desperate to reach the 90-minute mark, but writer/director Mike Marvin’s vision of a fairy tale revenge movie with cars deserves praise and has earned its rightful place as a cult film.
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