A movie like The Wraith seems to be a casserole of genres. It’s about a murdered person who returns from the grave to exact revenge in a slasher style where each killer is murdered one by one mostly. But it’s also a western, set in the Arizona desert, where the main protagonist like Clint Eastwood’s supernatural characters in High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider are also seeking revenge and to remove corrupt elements from a community. And also, it’s an homage to the car chase movies of the 1970s that grew in popularity following Bullitt and The French Connection.
Finally, in a twist that seems odd, it’s told mostly through the eyes of the main villain, Packard Walsh (Nick Cassavetes), who runs his own small gang of car thieves, all of which fit stereotypes. They’re dangerous and deadly and the movie opens when them acquiring a couple’s Daytona car after a race along a deserted highway. But there’s more to them than this. The young couple seem to be similar to Keri Johnson (Sherilyn Fenn) and her boyfriend, Jamie Hankins (shown through flashbacks played by Christopher Bradley). Jamie was killed by Packard’s gang and it’s implied Keri may have been sexually assaulted. The movie’s rated PG-13 but it’s an ode to there rape and revenge movies which were also popular in the 1970s.
No spoiler intended because a young man, Jake Kesey (Charlie Sheen) comes to town on a motorcycle heading toward a local recreational lake when he asks Keri for directions. But Packard shows up and Jake leaves. He has control over Keri in the small town even though they’re not a couple. At the watering role, Billy Hankins (Matthew Barry), Jamie’s brother, notices Jake has scars all over his back. They meet and bond. By now, you should know that Jake is actually a version of Jamie returning from the grave to seek revenge.
Both Billy and Keri work at a popular burger drive-in where Packard and his gang hang out. They include Rughead (Clint Howard), the technical nerd, Minty (Chris Nash), the preppy jock, Skank (David Sherill), the punk druggie with spiked hair who does inhalants, and Gutterboy (Jamie Bozian), who’s the redneck grease monkey in need of a bath. There’s also Oggie Fisher (Griffin O’Neal) who I’d say has a surfer dude look. Packard himself has like a 1980s rock star fashion.
Anyway, one day a Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor shows up to the burger join and Oggie races him but Oggie crashes and his car explodes off a cliff. Sheriff Lt. G.L. Loomis (Randy Quaid) shows up to the scene but is shocked to see that Oggie’s body isn’t burned anywhere but in fact cold to the touch. Yet, Oggie’s body is missing his eye sockets. That night, a man in leather auto racer attire and helmet with a darkened visor shows up to Packard’s garage with a shotgun and shoots up the place why the gang run for cover.
Later, Minty dies in a crash after challenging the Interceptor. At the same time, Loomis begins to suspect there’s more to the car crashes than mere road accidents. Rughead believes the driver isn’t human but a “wraith” and the spirit of Jamie seeking revenge. Periodically, Jake pops up to woo Keri and even though they have sex, she doesn’t see the scars on his back.
While there is no big mystery to what’s happening except for the creepy images of the dead people, this still has some good races considering the time frame and the budget limits. Cassavettes is very effective as the sleazy Packard. Unfortunately, since Jake doesn’t appear as much in the movie, Sheen more or less seems in some scenes to be reading his lines for the first time off cue cards off screen. I get that his character is just to randomly appear to like a ghost but he’s seen so sporadically, it seems more like a supporting role. Quaid has some fun with the role, which sucks that he’s since become some weirdo conspiracy theorists.
What’s amazing about the movie is its casting. Sheen was still on the rise at this time. His father, Martin, and older brother, Emilio Estevez, were more popular. Cassavetes is the son of legendary filmmaker/actor John Cassavetes and actress Gene Rowlands. Howard is the brother of Ron Howard and son of Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard. O’Neal is the son of Ryan O’Neal and brother to Tatum. And Quaid is the brother of Dennis Quaid and uncle to Jack Quaid. It’s like the casting director was watching The Long Riders and said, “We should cast a lot of lesser known family members to famous people.” However, Quaid was very well known at this time.
Sheen’s Platoon co-star Johnny Depp was nearby while filming as Fenn was dating him at the time and in Arizona. Made with a small budget, The Wraith is a a reminder to back when filmmakers used practical effects to tell a story. It’s not a classic by any sense but it’s a nice little movie that runs an hour and a half where bad guys get what’s coming to them, a lot of things go boom and bang and the good guys win in the end.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 