A whole town full of devil worshippers is absurd but i don't think thats really the point. The bad guys are people you wouldn't expect. Gas station attendants, cops, RV owners etc. To me thats what makes it scary. The film is not saying beware of devil worshippers its saying you are never really safe and people are not what they seem. To me that makes it scary. it has a scary message.
if you race the devil you better be fast as hell
Some good points raised here. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that there really was a great deal of paranoia in the mid-70s, thanks largely in part to the Watergate scandal. I mean if you can't trust your own government who the hell can you trust, right? A lot of movies made during that era were feeding off of that post-Watergate paranoia (The Coversation, The Parallax View, All The Presidents Men). Race With The Devil took it a step further by having a huge network of satanists operating in Texas, which means nowhere to run and hide, especially when seemingly normal people are in on the conspiracy.
shareas someone within a 30 minute drive of the area in this movie... i am now officially scared to be here. there is this element here. there are satanists here, they aren't as hidden anymore. i can see almost every bit of this movie happening today (even the purchase of a shotgun from a convenience store). oh...and there are quite a few of those camper parks around - Matthew McConaughey's nude bongo incident happened in one.
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You make an excellent point here. You're quite right- the fact that common, average, ordinary, everyday people are the threat is what makes it frightening.
Very intelligent post!
You are right. I think the idea that there is more to people than meets the eye is very creepy. Even in real life this is true. People may seem nice and wholesome but you never know what they do behind closed doors. You only see what people choose to show you which is frightening. Someone pretending to be benevolent and harmless when really they're evil incarnate is far scarier to me than someone who is evil without shame and makes no attempt to hide it.
shareWas it just the people in that one town or all the surrounding towns in the region? I suspect the cult had members all over the region or perhaps all over the state of Texas.
And I doubt that everyone in the town was in on it. The sheriff, deputy and mechanic were definitely members but was everyone else? (The librarian, for instance...?)
Also, I got the impression that the RV park was a little ways beyond the town and that not everyone there was a cult member, though the cult definitely had a presence in the park.
The cult was determined to follow and kill the two couples no matter how far out of the way they needed to go. That was obvious. Even if the RV made it to Amarillo, chances are there would be cult members either in hot pursuit or already waiting for them somewhere in the city.
The film is not saying beware of devil worshippers its saying you are never really safe and people are not what they seem. To me that makes it scary. it has a scary message.