Viking Night: The Wraith
By Bruce Hall
March 16, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
What I mean to say is that as I sat around contemplating the the end of the world, an image of Charlie Sheen popped into my mind.
I’m not sure why. I’m not claiming that this means anything, so don’t start stocking up on bottled water just yet. Or rather, it shouldn’t mean anything to you. What it meant to me was that this week’s column was fated to be Sheen related. Unfortunately, the image held in mind was one from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Great movie, but one I’ve already covered here (for the record, get yourself a copy). But then, for some reason, my apocalyptic reverie led me to another film from the same period.
A Charlie Sheen film.
The Wraith is the kind of dated, low-budget dreck that today might make for a borderline acceptable made-for-TV movie. And then, Randy Quaid shows up. I need to point out that I hadn’t seen this film since forever ago, and had completely forgotten the presence of Quaid the Elder. Prior to his appearance, The Wraith was going over about as well as an ingrown toenail. Think of it as a poor man’s, Reagan-era Fast and Furious knockoff. Quaid, in his prime, brings a certain swagger with him and it brings the movie to life.
It’s as though he personally convinced the movie around him to cast off its inhibitions and embrace its own insanity. It’s been a long time coming, but once again I understand why I was completely obsessed with this movie (for a few weeks anyway) when I first saw it. Yes, I was young and yes my standards were low. Perhaps they still are, because damn, was this a lot of fun. But look at me, giddy as a child and forgetting that I’m supposed to be writing a review. So how should I describe The Wraith, other than “a 90-minute revival of my gleeful childhood spirit”?
Imagine the first Fast and Furious film, except replace Dominic and his crew with evil meatheads. And instead of meeting Paul Walker, they meet a vengeful spirit from beyond the afterlife (I’m sure there’s a name for that). Obviously, you’ll want to add surprisingly little Charlie Sheen, a heaping helping of Randy Quaid, generous onscreen drug use and a just a dash of the supernatural. I understand that my description makes little sense, but The Wraith is something you just have to see in order to understand.
Sheen plays a drifter named Jake, who meets and immediately falls in love with a townie named Keri (Sherilyn Fenn). Unfortunately Keri is already mixed up with Packard Walsh (Nick Cassavetes), the unimpressively named town heavy. And when I say “mixed up with,” I mean that anyone who so much as speaks to Keri gets their car stolen and their face mashed into the pavement. They’re not in a relationship; Packard just forces her to hang out with him. Not only is it this even creepier than whatever the hell Jabba had in mind for Princess Leia, but it’s the kind of delightfully insane anachronism modern movies just can’t pull off.
Basically, whenever a guy says two words to Keri, Packard and his goons challenge the kid to a race, during which a Motley Crue song plays. Packard cheats in the race, take the loser’s car, and punches the poor dope in the face. It’s a nice racket, and one that Sheriff Loomis (Quaid) and his police force can’t crack. I’m not sure why; there only seem to be about 150 people in the whole town. But trust me, this will prove to be the least bananas aspect of the movie.
Packard and friends finally meet their match when a mysterious black car literally drives up to them and wordlessly challenges them to a race. There’s a second stranger in town, but this one drives Darth Vader’s weekend whip and tends to murder his opponents.
Ah, yes. I guess I should mention that one of Packard’s goons chooses to race the Black Car, and is killed under mysterious circumstances. It would seem the Phantom Racer has some sweet ass powers under the hood of that (still) slick looking ride (even if it does have an ordinary Dodge logo on the front of it). Packard and his road pirates find themselves beset by what seems to be a thing of legend. Maybe this sounds cool to you, and maybe it doesn’t. I’ll tell you what IS cool about this movie, though. No charge.
First, Packard isn’t nearly as interesting as his moron underlings Skank (David Sherrill) and Gutter Boy (Jamie Bozian). I’m not sure if they’re extras from Blade Runner or those punks from the first few minutes of The Terminator, but they’re one of the best things about The Wraith. As I implied, Packard is more than just the antagonist here, he’s also something of a textbook psychotic. And he’s one surrounded by a film that doesn’t take itself particularly seriously. His henchmen are sycophantic dopes or spaced out junkies whose crippling addictions are played for laughs.
Ha! But then there’s Quaid the Elder, holding court over the whole film before you know it. Loomis almost seems to understand that he’s in a movie, and he’s the Sheriff, so it’s only a matter of time before he’s either killed off or gets his man. So, he begins nearly every sentence with “I’ve got this problem,” and peppers his discourse with memorable gems like “crater head,” “nose gold” and “brain eradicator.” I’d be willing to sit through a spinoff film that was nothing more than Randy Quaid stuck in an elevator, upbraiding a pair of burnouts with a sock puppet.
Hilariously, Loomis seems far less concerned with all the stalking and rampant drug use around him than he is about catching the kids in the act of racing. He doesn’t seem to understand that literally 30 seconds after he first appears, he could probably just go ahead and arrest everyone onscreen at any time.
Also hilarious is the fact that while all this madness is going on, Packard almost completely forgets about Jake and Keri. They largely inhabit the background, toodling around town on his motorbike, taking hazy sun drenched walks together and boning in the hot tub to hair-metal power ballads. Don’t be fooled - this isn’t the story of Charlie Sheen rolling into town, thumbing his nose at the establishment and sexing the gang leader’s girlfriend.
Well, it is, but that’s the B-story. How funny is that? Name another movie that you can truly say you love, where the three leads are the least interesting thing about it. I imagine the list is short.
So as I suggested earlier, take my most wondrous apocalyptic vision worth a grain of salt. Don’t see The Wraith for Charlie Sheen, or to see Charlie Sheen get lucky in a hot tub (we’ve all seen that), or even for Ron Howard’s scruffy little brother, who is totally in this. Watch it because you want to see the story of Randy Quaid fruitlessly investigating a series of murders that basically happen right in front of him, while getting nowhere in his valiant, snarky crusade the town’s comically inept street racing scene.
And you KNOW you do.