By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 6, 2013)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry/Race with the Devil – Shout! Factory Blu-ray

Talk about a guilty pleasure! This is a real deal low-budget “grind house double feature” from the actual era that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez spent $53 million attempting to recreate with their 2007 mock-up. Jack Starret’s 1975 occult thriller Race with the Devil was the primary reason I picked up this “two-fer” Blu-ray . Peter Fonda and Warren Oates star as buds who hit the road in an RV with wives (Lara Parker, Loretta Swit) and dirt bikes in tow. The first night’s bivouac doesn’t go so well; the two men witness what appears to be a human sacrifice by a devil worship cult, and it’s downhill from there (it’s literally a “vacation from hell”). A genuinely creepy chiller that keeps you on the edge of your seat to the end.

John Hough’s Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is another Fonda vehicle, co-starring my first major teenage crush Susan George (*sigh*) and Adam Roarke. Fonda and Roarke play car racing partners who take an ill-advised detour into crime, robbing a grocery store in hopes of getting enough loot to buy a pro race car. They soon find themselves on the run from the law. A shameless rip off of Vanishing Point; but muscle car enthusiasts will dig the ride (and that cherry ’69 Dodge Charger). The  extras include  recollections by Fonda and George.