07.29.08
Death Race 2008: Extra Action, Hold the Satire, Please
You know those jokes you and your friends make about scoring extra points based on who you hit while driving? Well, you may or may not be aware that these jokes originate with Roger Corman’s movie Death Race 2000, a cult classic described as a mixture of horror and farce.
The premise of Death Race 2000 is a future America (2000 was the future in 1975) under a totalitarian government which sponsors the eponymous race as a sort of gladiatorial distraction from the oppression. As the trailer below here shows, it’s done in a quite farcical faction, but nevertheless there is some social commentary in there.
2000 has come and passed, and though it ushered in the era of Bush/Cheney, the only death race going on was the race for Bush’s lackeys to grab the money (dollar dollar bill y’all). But throw in new Department of Homeland Security (run these days by a vampire), a couple new wars, privacy and due process was thrown out of the window, with a dash of water torture, and you’ve got 2008.
What better a time, then, to take the concept of Death Race 2000, strip it of its apropos social satire, and leave the gladiatorial entertainment to distract us from our overbearing government?
Well, you asked for it!
