No. 152 : Wheels Of Terror (1990)

Wheels of Terror (1990) at the IMDb

Here’s the first doubler of the ‘W’ quest with this feature unrelated to the Ollie Reed World War 2 fest we enjoyed slightly way back when. This film has an iconic poster that I remember from the home video hay day of the early eighties. I never saw the film then as the shop never had it in but having seen it now I wish I had kept the air of mystery as it is complete crap.

It was made as a TV movie so you have to give it some latitude but not much as it’s patently awful. The film is effectively one big chase with a few bits of nonsense bolted on for the sake of the running time. We open with a single mum moving to a remote town. She has a history of being a driver (remember that) and has a job driving a school bus which has a souped up engine courtesy of a friendly Mexican (remember that too!).

Mother and daughter relocated to get away from crime ridden LA but wouldn’t you know it that the small town is being menaced by a bad car complete with its own ominous musical cues. We know the car is bad as it has blacked out windows and is a bit dirty. Despite the town being tiny no one seems to notice this dirty Dodge Charger crawling about outside the primary school. Soon a girl is abducted and is retuned interfered with so we know we are dealing with a nonce with a dirty car - the worst kind.

He soon elevates his crimes to murder and the local town meeting is in brouhaha crisis although they pooh-pooh the bad car stories. Despite being the main voice of caution the bus driving mum sees her daughter taken next and embarks on a half hour cross country chase in her school bus to reclaim her captured child. After the seemingly endless chase the car goes off a cliff but then reappears suggesting something supernatural, but then it goes over again and into a dynamite shack for good measure and that’s that.

This film marks a nadir in The Quest and frankly I’m regretting some of the low ratings I’ve issued before as this is the worst of the lot. The ‘bad car’ just comes across as daft and annoying. We never know the driver or his history and all attempts to make a character out of the vehicle itself fail miserably. It does have headlight eyes and a growly voice but that’s it. It’s not even that fast failing to out run a school bus (albeit a souped up one) and it’s really wimpy when given even the slightest bump.

The heroine working mum struggling with her single parenthood and holding down a job is a real cliché but she does buck that somewhat by doing some mean driving stunts in a bus. The seemingly endless chase sequence is really poor with the same put the bad guy into a spin move done a dozen times. There are a couple of humorous moves where the car jumps out, especially one where it flattens a motorcycle cop, but it never graduates from the ridiculous. The coup de gras ending where it lands on a hut marked ‘EXPLOSIVES’ is straight out of Looney Tunes and is a fitting ending to a rubbishy and far fetched TV movie that wants the style of ‘Vanishing Point’ but has all the charisma of vanish stain remover.

Best Bit : Watch out for the TNT shack!
‘W’ rating : 1/23

No.52 : Wheels of Terror (1987)

Wheels of Terror at the IMDb

All you fans of Ollie Reed out there have no doubt tracked down this film and been disappointed by it. Despite featuring prominently on the poster he doesn't show up until there are only 7 minutes left and slurs his way through half a dozen lines at most. No doubt he was only on set for one day but what the hell let’s stick him on the box and lure a few suckers in.

This film from 1987 is truly awful despite a well known cast and good source material - it was based on the book of the same name by Sven Hassel. The film is set in the latter stages of WW2 and an American sounding voice over man tells us that the Furher has started ‘Penal Battalions’ for dangerous missions - a bit of a Nazi ‘Dirty Dozen’ if you like. The motley crew have a few scraps before they bond after a dust up in a brothel.

Evil Colonel David Carradine has a mission for them - blow up a Russian supply train 150 miles behind enemy lines and they can have some time off and have their records cleared. Our guys set off, first having to steal explosives from the dozy Soviets before heading to the train depot in Red Army gear. After a brief encounter with a group of deserters from both sides and sexes they head off to blow up the oldest and smallest train you’ll ever see.

The initial attempt is a failure but can they succeed and at what cost? Will the Colonel keep his word and will there be anyone left for Ollie to pin a medal on?

This is a strange film - most of the cast is American yet they are all badly dubbed. I can only imagine the film was shot in English for the foreign market and then dubbed. Seeing how great it was someone must have then re-dubbed it back into English using mostly different voices. Crazy!

The film looks totally false and nothing like the Eastern Front it’s supposed to portray. The bright sunny days are a clue that we are not in Russia and it was no surprise to learn that the whole thing was actually shot in Yugoslavia. In 5 days. Probably.

I remembered some of the characters from the book like Porta and Tiny but they were nothing like the blood thirsty criminals I remembered. The lead is the guy who got filled with water in ’X-Men’ and he’s ably assisted by the leader of the Rogues out of ’The Warriors’. ’Script come out to play ay ay’ he should have said.

David Carradine is obviously miscast as the baddie German being of Eastern decent as he is. No one seems to notice but they are probably all mesmerised by his fake scar and funny, oh so tough, lines. The cheapness of the whole production is apparent throughout with the same tanks used for both sides with justification lines such as ‘they've stolen our tank let’s steal it back’ used to repel suspicious viewers. You also see nothing destroyed, with direct hits being nothing more than some petrol set alight on the tank’s bonnet.

The bottom line is that this film is rubbish with nothing to recommend it. It shamelessly cashes in of some star names who have little input to the actual film, and is so bad and unrealistic in places that it’s almost funny. But not quite.

Best Bit :Ollie as the mean General raises a smile

‘W’ Score 5/23