DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) – Episode 185 – Decades Of Horror 1970s

“You know, it used to be in the old days, we would just take someone like you in an alley and blow their brains out.” While you eat lightning and crap thunder? Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they take a ride-along with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone in Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 (1975). Vroom, vroom!

Decades of Horror 1970s
Episode 185 – Death Race 2000 (1975)

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In a dystopian future, a cross-country automobile race requires contestants to run down innocent pedestrians to gain points that are tallied based on each kill’s brutality.

• Director: Paul Bartel
• Writers: Robert Thom (screenplay by), Charles B. Griffith (screenplay by), Ib Melchior (from his story: “The Racer”)
• Producer: Roger Corman
• 2nd Unit Director: Lewis Teague, Charles B. Griffith, 
• Selected cast:
  • David Carradine as “Frankenstein”
  • Simone Griffeth as Annie Smith (Frankenstein’s navigator)
  • Sylvester Stallone as Joe “Machine Gun” Viterbo
  • Mary Woronov as Jane “Calamity Jane” Kelly
  • Roberta Collins as Matilda “The Hun”
  • Martin Kove as Ray “Nero the Hero” Lonagan
  • Louisa Moritz as Myra (Joe’s navigator)
  • Don Steele as Junior Bruce (race announcer)
  • Joyce Jameson as Grace Pander (race announcer)
  • Carle Bensen as Harold (race announcer)
  • Sandy McCallum as Mr. President
  • Paul L. Ehrmann as Special Agent (credited as Paul Laurence)
  • Harriet Medin as Thomasina Paine
  • Vince Trankina as Lieutenant Fury
  • Bill Morey as Deacon
  • Fred Grandy as Herman ‘The German’ Boch (Matilda’s navigator)
  • William Shephard as Pete (Jane’s navigator)
  • Leslie McRay as Cleopatra (Nero’s navigator)
  • Wendy Bartel as Laurie
  • John Favorite as Henry (credited as Jack Favorite)
  • Sandy Ignon as FBI Agent
  • John Landis as Mechanic
  • Darla McDonell as Rhonda Bainbridge
  • Roger Rook as Radio Operator
  • Dick Miller as a member of the Chicken Gang (uncredited)
  • Lewis Teague as a Toreador (uncredited)

Join the Grue-Crew as they revisit the campy sci-fi smash-em-up, Death Race 2000 (1975), from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and director Paul Bartel. The film stars David Carradine (as Frankenstein) opposite pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone (as Joe “Machine Gun” Viterbo) in the dystopian “future” of the year 2000, a time when Americans root for their favorite drivers as they race from New York to New Los Angeles mowing down civilians along the way for points. Machine Gun Viterbo is out for blood while Frankenstein has other plans. Let the shenanigans begin.

At the time of this writing, Death Race 2000 is available to stream from Tubi, Popcornflix, Cultpix, and PPV from Apple TV. 

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode, chosen by Bill, will be Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), showcasing Ray Harryhausen’s genius, Jane Seymour, Patrick Troughton, and . . . Patrick Wayne? That should be interesting.

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