Wednesday, January 17, 2024

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ROLLING VENGEANCE (1987) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Don Michael Paul stars as a young trucker who goes into the trucking business with his old man (Lawrence Dane).  To put food on the table, they are forced to deliver to a slimeball (Ned Beatty) who owns what’s practically the only bar in town.  He also has a gaggle of hothead redneck sons who regularly cruise around town and torment the townsfolk with impunity.  When they cause Paul’s mother and sisters to die in a car accident, the law refuses to punish the guilty.  After the gang hospitalizes his dad, Paul does what any good son would do:  Turn his truck into a flame-shooting monster truck of vengeance.  Then they rape his girlfriend (Lisa Howard), and he gets REAL mad. 

Rolling Vengeance is kind of like a late ‘80s Canadian version of a late ‘70s Good Ol’ Boy movie mixed with a Cannon revenge picture.  That is to say, I had a pretty good time with it.  It was obviously trading in on the Bigfoot monster truck craze of the time as there are plenty of scenes of monster trucks running over rows of cars.  Bigfoot may be cool and all, but did he have a phallic-shaped drill that impaled evading vehicles?  I don’t think so. 

Paul Kersey had a Wildey.  The Exterminator had a flamethrower.  This guy has a drill-dick Bigfoot. 

Oh, and the sight of Ned Beatty dressed up like a greaser from a ‘50s juvenile delinquent movie is really… something. 

Director Steven H. Stern was mostly known for his TV work (most notably, Mazes and Monsters).  He handles things in a workmanlike manner, and wisely doesn’t oversell the potentially silly premise.  He maybe uses a little bit too much slow motion, but your mileage (no pun intended) may vary.  Paul later went on to direct a slew of DTV sequels and wrote the immortal Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. 

AKA:  Monster Truck.

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