Phantom Racer (2009)

Check out our written interview with director Terry Ingram.

J.J. and Cutter are bitter rivals on the local racing circuit.  As the movie opens we see them “flying” (more on this later) around the track trying to beat each other in front of some important sponsors.  When J.J. loses control of his car he causes an accident that costs Cutter his life.  The movie then moves forward into the presents and we see that nearly 20 years later J.J. has quit driving cars and now ferries another team’s stock car around in a big rig.  When he finds himself in his hometown when a broken down rig the ghost of Cutter comes back to get some revenge.  Toss in a subplot with Cutter’s girlfriend and her daughter and you have a movie!

Phantom Racer is one of those movies that is best taken with the critical part of your brain turned off.  I mean this is a seriously silly flick, but then again it is a killer car movie.  The plot is fairly straightforward and predictable.  The movie goes out of it’s way to make sure it hits on all the required points.  Is the hero cleared of any wrongdoing in the original accident?  Check.  Is he then blamed for the killings, even when he was sitting in the sheriff’s office during one of them?  Check.  Does the sheriff and his deputies get killed off because they over react?  Check.  Is there a silly subplot involving the girlfriend of Cutter and her daughter?  Check.  All of this said and in spite of a couple of slow parts early on the movie finds it’s footing and ends up being pretty damn fun.  I mean if you aren’t going to be original at least you need to give the audience what it is looking for.  Phantom Racer does that very well.  We get some cool kills, a few one liners, and decent performances from a couple of leads that are best know as “B” actors from the 70s and 80s. Greg Evigan is decent as J.J. and gives one of his better performances in several years.   Though most of his performance is from behind the wheel it works.  Also I was kind of impressed with Nicole Eggert, who other than one pretty bad crying scene (she gets over her husbands death pretty quickly) isn’t too bad.  Though the actress that plays her daughter is just annoying in that community theater sort of way. 

What is really the best part of the movie is the car and the mayhem it creates.  First of all I have to let you guys know that the car eats people!  Really there is one guy that gets pulled into a seat with a seat belt and another victim has his face ripped off by the wiper blades.  But my favorite kills are the decapitation by window and the trunk that munches down on one would be car thief.  Really it shreds the kid.  While the effects for these kills are pretty simple they are all also practical!  How often do we get to see some practical effects in a low budget flick?  Not often enough for my tastes, so I applaud the filmmakers for doing this.  There are a few instances of CGI, but it is mostly used for the ghost effects, which works pretty well for me.  In fact my only complaint is that the opening car race is pretty damn cheesy.  It is clear that the cars aren’t really going that fast.  This ruins the setup of the movie, but luckily by the time they get to the end the final car chase is much better. 

All in all not the greatest movie, but more than adequate for a killer car flick.  You get some good kills, decent performances for a cheesy horror movie, and a body count.  I wouldn’t drop a lot of cash on the DVD, but it is worth at least a rental. 

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer