The Wraith (1986)


The Wraith is a movie I was introduced to by a friend of mine shortly after it hit video shelves back in the '80s.  It did moderately well in the theater as it was pretty much a low-budget film with a good soundtrack and cool-looking cars.  That was all it needed, but writer and director Mike Marvin, along with being influenced by such movies as High Plains Drifter and Mad Max 2, also had a thing for David Lynch and Eraserhead in particular.  That meant a combination teen flick and supernatural revenge film with a bit of surrealism thrown in. 

Jake Kesey (Charlie Sheen) is a new arrival in the small town of Brooks, Arizona.  The town is terrorized by a gang of street racers led by Packard (Nick Cassavetes).  They corner people on the rural roads and force them to participate in races against their will with their cars on the line.  However, the gang also has a bit of a secret.  Packard murdered a man named Jamie (Christopher Bradley) when he caught him with his girlfriend Keri (Sherilyn Fenn) and got away with it due to the help of his cronies.

Despite the warnings of how possessive Packard is Jake gets to romancing Keri.  Meanwhile, Packard has a new problem, with the arrival of a mysterious stranger driving a custom racing car and using it to take out the members of the gang.  Sheriff Loomis (Randy Quaid) attempts to stop what is happening and even tries to get the gang to cooperate, but things go as they do until it is just down to the stranger and Packard. 

This has a number of humorous moments which comes as no surprise since Marvin's debut feature was the sex comedy Hamburger: The Motion Picture.  Unfortunately, the humor is provided by the two most annoying members of the gang, Skank (David Sherrill) and Gutterboy (Jamie Bozian).  They fall in that "funny voices" category of humor that makes so much Adam Sandler stuff unbearable.  Clint Howard shows up as Rughead, the group's tech guy, and the only one not directly involved in Jamie's murder.

Sheen is barely in it for a good portion as he had a small window to do this film before making Platoon.  He's pretty good, as he always has been, at playing a morally ambiguous role.  Sherilyn Fenn provides a bit of what she is most famous for - not her acting, of course - while Nick Cassavetes makes a repugnant but interesting villain.  The star is the car, an experimental million-dollar piece of machinery that, of course, was not used in any of the driving scenes.  They did a good job of dressing up some go-carts and adding an electronic whine to make the vehicle sound otherworldly. 

I remembered it not having the greatest acting but that doesn't bother me as much as it did back then.  It is fine for what the movie is.  The whole appeal is that it delivers where it counts with plenty of action and a hero that looks cool even out of the car.  It is even more fun to watch now as it is such an obvious '80s film that the music and fashion add an extra layer of colorful fun to the whole thing.  

The Wraith (1986)
Time: 93 minutes
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, Randy Quaid
Director: Mike Marvin

 

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