MOVIE REVIEWS: WHEELS OF TERROR

 I just found out there was a movie from 1990 about a 1974 Dodge Charger that terrorized the land! What a great idea for a movie but as we know the acting in 1990 was some of the worst of all time and if something was made for tv, it was even worse. So how bad or good was this movie? Find out now! Just imagine Jaws if it took place on the land and not in the ocean, and instead of a shark it was a 1974 Dodge Charger, and instead of beach goers it's young girls, that's this movie.

It stars..............no one you've ever heard of. The movie opens up with a man and his daughter broken down on the side of the road with their white Ford Tempo. Already highly accurate and believable. We then see a dirty 74 Charger coming down the road and the man thinks, "Oh good, this car will stop and save us!" BUT OH NO HE DIDN'T. Like most 1974 Dodge Chargers, it speeds up and smashed the Tempo's door off. (Some will say the Ford Tempo's door just happened to fall off as they often did and it was merely coincidence that the Charger was driving by at the exact same time). We then see the Charger back up and the door opens..............the scene ends there and we have no clue who or what or why this is happening, but we are intrigued.

Next we get to meet the main character of the story. She's a single mom that moved from L.A. to be in this tiny Arizona town, classic story. She also happens to be a bus driver and just so happens the guy that works on the buses, a stereotypical Mexican mechanic named Luis, put a racing engine into her bus! Well of course he did because that makes perfect sense! (Hmm...I wonder if that race engine will come into play later on....probably not). She seems happy in this town, as does her daughter Stephanie. When she is picking Stephanie up from gymnastics class she asks the teacher what are the odds of winning and the teacher replies with, "All I know is, I'm going to sleep with every male judge there." That's pretty blunt lady and cheaters never prosper! Either way you never hear about that again so it's not important I just laughed really hard at that line.

While driving kids home from school the Charger stalks her and them. You never see who is driving the car BUT we do often see their perspective from inside the Charger as kids are walking home from school. The bus driver woman takes some kids home. He comes up and drives close to them making the kids and the woman very worried and distraught. The kids start to yell out in fear. If you listen closely you can actually hear a little boy go, "cool!" Haha, yes little boy, that evil car trying to kill you guys is cool. Eventually the Charger disappears and everyone seems to be safe.........OR ARE THEY?!?!

A girl is walking home after being dropped off by the bus and we see the Charger slowly approach. It then circles her just like a kick-ass metal V8 shark. She screams and tries to run away but the Charger flings open its door and snatches the girl up. Lesson learned: You can't outrun a Charger on foot. The townspeople hold a meeting about the terror on wheels that is plaguing their little town but no one has a solution as the cop says, "Hey I'd like them to be more safe but I'm just one man." So they just continue to live life as they always have, carefree with their guard down. The kids will be safe enough........OR WILL THEY?!?!?

The Charger spends its day tailing kids home from school and mysteriously disappearing after the woman bus driver spots it.  She dreams about it chasing her and then wakes up, it was all a dream!..........OR WAS IT?!?! (Talk about a night terror on wheels) A few times it even shows up at her house in the middle of the night to rev its engine and do burnouts on her front lawn. These scenes were really awesome by the way. 

Soon the little girl's best friend is abducted by the evil Charger. She gets in while it is parked outside the school, not sure why she did this. No way she thought it was her mother, her mother wouldn't be driving such a cool car. The bus driver lady knows damn well that it wasn't the girl's mother and she's going to go complain to the sheriff about it. A huge search reveals that the girl is dead in a swamp. Well that's just great and as the bus driver's little girl tells her mom how sad she is that she lost her best friend they hear an odd sound outside of their house....like a loud engine....IT'S THE DEATH CHARGER!!! It's outside in the pouring rain and it decides to rev its engine and peel out of their driveway. The two frightened idiots hug each other crying.

As you can guess the bus driver's little girl is also kidnapped by the Charger but that bus driving mother won't let her child get away and she tears after them in her bus, thank goodness it has a race car engine in it!!! (Did you see that coming?) She is able to keep up with Charger for the most part even though the kids on the bus are crying and yelling at her to stop. They go through a lot of desert-type land and on dirt roads. This is actually a pretty cool chase scene. Unfortunately for the bus driving mom they get to an actual highway and once the Charger hits that pavement, it's gone! The bus just can't keep up although the mom has her bus floored and the passengers terrified.

A bike cop comes after the bus and pulls it over which really angers the mom because she can't lose the Charger anymore than she already has! She gets out and starts yelling at the cop about the car that took her daughter. He actually seems to understand her incoherent screaming and says he will go ahead and call the other cops. But wait, it's time for a slow motion reaction as the mother realizes.........THE CHARGER IS JUMPING OFF A CLIFF RIGHT AT THE BIKE COP!!! It lands on him and destroys the motorcycle as well as the police officer. (Awesome fake mannequin cop part here, it's worth several rewinds.) Well now the woman is pissed but gets back on the bus and takes off after the Charger.

This next part takes forever as she chases him and he chases her and she rams him and he rams her. At one point the Charger tries to trap her at some gas station place and circles her smashing the gas pumps making a ring of fire. It also tries to push her off a cliff and the bus is teetering over the edge with the kids freaking out. It also tries to trap her in some factory thing but yet again she escapes and it drives off. She chases it again for what seems like forever until they get to a big mining operation and although they aren't allowed to drive around that dangerous place with explosives (foreshadowing) they drive right in ramming into one another. The mom does a pretty good job of banging up the Charger here, you'd think she'd be worried about hurting her daughter but she doesn't seem to care. The daughter IS alive by the way because she occasionally pops her head out of the window or sun roof to yell for help.

Finally the woman and Charger are racing around smacking each other and the little girl manages to crawl out of the open sun roof and hangs on to the bus, it's actually a pretty cool scene with the stunts. The bus pushes the Charger and we see it falling off a cliff. The nightmare is finally over.

The mother and daughter hug now that the terror has finally stopped. They cry and hug and are safe at last.....OR ARE THEY?!?!?! They both hear a distant familiar revving of an engine. They look up to see....THE CHARGER IS BACK! This time he means to ram them at full speed! He peels out and flies towards the bus BUT THE BUS WON'T START! The mom turns the key and turns the key and the Charger is getting closer and closer! This looks like the end............then the mother starts the bus and floors it in reverse nearly missing the charging Charger. The evil Charger flies off a cliff (again) but this time it is much, MUCH higher. This is a really cool part because they really flung that car off a huge cliff. It lands nose first into a giant trailer that says, "EXPLOSIVES" on the side (how convenient). A massive explosion of epic proportion ensues and we see a giant fire ball and black smoke rolling up the side of the mountain. Finally the terror is over..........OR IS IT?!?!? No, it really is this time.

Wheels of Terror is one of the best movies I've ever seen in the past 2 hours. It has all the wonderful acting of a TV movie from 1990 with all the huge mega super stars such as.........no one.

 Now to grade this movie. For the acting I give it a solid D, definitely not the worst I've watched but enough to make you laugh out loud. For the plot I give it a C- it was a cool idea but it didn't explain anything and it never really showed the bad guys. This movie is an hour and a half which is pretty long but in it's defense many shots were done in slow motion. The music gets a D- because it was clearly made for TV movie style music and every single time we see the Charger we hear that, "this is the bad guy and or something serious is about to happen" classic over-done music. The actors get a nice big F+ because they did make me laugh but this wasn't supposed to be a comedy. Overall I give this movie an A+ because no matter what it has a 1974 Dodge Charger in it that is totally badass, always revving its engine, peeling out, and terrorizing a small town with some great chase scenes. There are some really great shots in this movie and honestly where else are you going to see that much of a 74 Charger??? The tag line is also pure gold, "Evil waits...with the motor running."

I highly recommend this movie if you're a Mopar fan, a Charger fan, a fan of really bad movies, or just want a good laugh from some bad acting.