THE WRAITH (1986)

DIRECTED AND WRITTEN by Mike Marvin.

STARRING  - Charlie Sheen as Jake Kesey/The Wraith/Jamie Hankins,  Matthew Barry as Billy Hankins,  Sherilyn Fenn as Keri Johnson,  Randy Quaid as Sheriff G. L. Loomis,  Clint Howard as Rughead,  Nick Cassavetes as Packard Walsh,  David Sherrill as Maurice Skank,  Jamie Bozian as Gutterboy,  Chris Nash as Minty.

PLOT  - In the town of Brooks, Arizona, psychotic street racer, Packard Walsh and his gang are conducting a reign of terror on the midnight highways. Walsh challenges unwary road users to race him and if they lose (as they always do) he steals thier cars and, if they are not travelling alone, sometimes leaves thier women to be raped by his gang members. Walsh also has a terrified girl in his thrall, Keri, who he controls and terrorises. Keri's boyfriend, Jamie was recently murdured and Walsh was responsible.

A loner on a motorbike, Jake, rides into town and soon he befriends both Keri and Jamie's brother, Billy. Much to Walsh's annoyance. He doesn't like the attention Jake is giving Keri and vows to do something about it.

At the same time, another new arrival is causing a stir in town. A mysterious black leather clad car driver, no one knows who he is, no one can see his face. He drives a jet black Turbo Interceptor and very soon he appears to challenge Walsh's gang. One by one this mysterious being known as "The Wraith" kills the various members of Walsh's gang. Tricking them into racing him and then causing them to fatally crash. The Wraith appears to be possessed of supernatural powers...

Who or what is The Wraith and what connection does he have to Jake, Keri and the long dead but not forgotten Jamie ?

PERFORMANCES  - Once upon a time, back in the 80's, Charlie Sheen was pretty hot property. He came from a respected acting family, had the talent and the looks and filmmakers seemed to genuinely want to cast him in thier movies. These days he's become a Cocaine addled parody of himself and can't even get work in rubbish TV sitcoms anymore. Such is life when you're snorting several thousand dollars worth of Colombian export up your nose everyday. When The Wraith was made in 1986 though, Sheen's star was still on the rise, that dark and wasted future was still decades away from him. Surprisingly, seeing how well loved Sheen was back then, he's not actually in the film that much at all, even though he's ostensibly the main character and its his name topping the bill.

Sheen plays Jake. He rides into town, wears shades, acts cool, cops off with Sherilyn Fenn and then we don't really see him again until the final scenes of the film. He's good in the few scenes he's in but it seems strange that the producers would fork out so much cash for a popular rising star and then so under utilise him. For most of the film, Sheen is wearing the leather jumpsuit and motorcycle helmet of The Wraith, but it could literally be ANYONE under there, and it probably was seeing as most of the scenes with The Wraith involve absolutely insane driving and stunts. I'm willing to bet that at least 80 percent of the time that the Wraith is onscreen that it isn't Sheen at all. Instead he's far more likely to be played by some random suited up stuntman. This has probably got to be one of the least labour intensive leading roles in the history of cinema. Sheen probably wasn't complaining though, he was being paid a fair amount, probably enough to keep him well stocked with Columbian marching powder for a couple of days at any rate.

Future Twin Peaks star Sherilyn Fenn plays Keri, the abused "girlfriend" of Walsh. It's an OK performance, she doesn't really get tons to do and it's obviously very early days for her. She's a long way from being the talented and charismatic actress that she was later to become whilst playing the iconic Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks. Here she's somewhat bland and just gives a serviceable portrayal of her character. Fenn clearly needed somebody like David Lynch to bring out the best in her and cause her to achieve her full potential, This movie's director, Mike Marvin, wasn't up to the task in that respect.

With so little screen time dedicated to the film's "lead" actor, it falls to the actual villain of the piece to take up the lion's share of the film's runtime. It's perhaps a good thing then that Nick Cassavetes plays the role of Packard Walsh so well. He's a psychotic control freak, mentally and emotionally unstable and needs to surround himself with doped up, fawning acolytes to make himself feel top of the shit heap. Walsh becomes our eyes and ears as we see his criminal enterprise slowly crumble around him. 

We also get some good secondary villains in the shape of David Sherrill as Skank, Jamie Bozian as Gutterboy and Clint Howard as Rughead. These three all look and act like rejects from a Mad Max movie and are all the better for it. What I find amusing is that in most films involving illegal street racing, the flag waver that starts the race is traditionally a hot, young woman (usually clad in a bikini), in this film we get Clint Howard performing that role instead. Clint Howard - a man with the face of a small ugly baby thats been consumed by an adult body...

Rounding out the cast, we get Randy Quaid playing the local Sherrif. Loomis is a typical redneck small town Sheriff. He doggedly pursues Walsh and his gang but can never quite get the proof he needs to nail them. He seems both glad and slightly resentful that the Wraith is doing a better job at taking these rogues down than he is. Quaid brings a cynical worn down edge to the role and makes for an interesting "fill-in" hero when the main hero isn't around (which is 90 percent of the time in this film).

SFX - This is not a particularly effects heavy film as most of the action is based around some admittedly stunning car chases. We do get the odd weird looking supernatural light here and there. It's never really revealed what the source of The Wraith's power actually is. It turns out that Jake is the vengeful ghost of Jamie, given a new face so those nearest and dearest to him don't recognise him, and that both Jake and his dirtbike somehow magically transform into The Wraith and his Turbo Interceptor. We see what look like meteorites fly across the night sky in the opening scene, implying that there may be some kind of extraterrestrial involvement in these events or at least some sort of cosmic force of justice, but it's never explained fully or coherently. We get a brief transformation sequence at the end when we see The Wraith revert back to being Jake but that's about it...

All the "magic" effects have a very neon 80's look to them.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Most of the deaths occur via high speed car crashes, so you never see anyone die up close and personal. There's a lot of spectacular explosions and pyrotechnics but no gore.

RATING  - The Wraith is a flawed but enjoyable movie. It's about as 80's as you can get with its pop soundtrack, brat pack era actors and neon aesthetics. This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your personal tastes. It's a strange story of cars and supernatural vengeance from beyond the grave. Just imagine a weird hybrid mash up of Mad Max, The Crow, Street Hawk, The Fast and the Furious and The Breakfast Club and you're about half way there. A truly weird and unconventional action movie.

I'm giving it 3 and a half coked up spirits of vengence out of 5.