General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Race with the Devil

Race with the Devil is a 1975 American action-horror film directed by Jack Starrett, in which two couples traveling by motor home from Texas to Colorado witness a human sacrifice at a Satanic ritual and are pursued by cult members across the countryside. It stars Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, and Lara Parker, was written by Lee Frost and Wes Bishop, and was distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	New York opening 9 July 1975; Los Angeles opening 27 August 1975; wide domestic release June 27, 1975 by 20th Century Fox¹^•³
Runtime and rating	88 minutes, MPAA PG, color by DeLuxe, Westrex sound, Panavision equipment¹
Principal cast	Peter Fonda (Roger Marsh), Warren Oates (Frank Stewart), Loretta Swit (Alice Stewart), Lara Parker (Kelly Marsh), R.G. Armstrong (Sheriff Taylor)¹
Key crew	Director Jack Starrett; writers Lee Frost and Wes Bishop; producer Wes Bishop; executive producer Paul Maslansky; cinematographer Robert Jessup; music Leonard Rosenman¹^•²
Stunt toll	Sixteen cars, two trucks, and eight motorcycles were destroyed in the film's stunts, per an 8 August 1975 Los Angeles Times report¹
Box office	$12,000,000 domestic gross³
Working title	So Mote It Be, a reference to the threatening note the cultists attach to the motor home's broken window¹

Spoilers

Plot

Frank Stewart, a motorcycle shop owner and retired racer, meets his friend Roger Marsh at a motorbike racetrack, and the two couples set out from San Antonio in Frank's new motor home for a ski vacation in Colorado.¹^•⁴ Camping at an isolated spot off the highway, Roger and Frank see a congregation of robed figures beside a distant bonfire and, investigating with binoculars, watch a masked leader stab a naked young woman through the heart in an occult ritual.¹

When Alice calls out from the motor home, she unknowingly reveals the witnesses to the cultists, who chase the men back to the vehicle; as the couples drive off, cult members smash the rear window with bats.¹ The local sheriff refuses to help, and the four are repeatedly attacked as their vacation turns into a flight through small towns where nearly everyone seems to be involved.⁵ The film builds to gunfights and chase sequences and closes on an unsparing, slow-motion conclusion in which the cultists trap the motor home in a ring of fire while the chanting continues.⁴^•⁶

Production

Principal photography began in San Antonio, Texas, in January 1975 under the working title So Mote It Be, and a April 1975 trade report noted that shooting had finished in central Texas.¹ The production employed over one hundred Texas actors and crew, including director of photography Robert Jessup.¹

A change of director. According to an account drawing on a book-length study of the film, co-screenwriter Lee Frost was the original director, but Twentieth Century-Fox grew wary of the unpredictable Oates, Fonda, and Bishop's frequent changes to the dialogue and placed Jack Starrett, already known for action films such as Cleopatra Jones, in the director's chair as a steadying force; production then settled into a groove and the film became profitable.⁶ Producer Paul Maslansky solicited the work of "Satanists and black magic experts" as extras, lending the cult scenes a claimed verisimilitude.⁶

The physical production was expensive in hardware: an August 1975 report counted sixteen cars, two trucks, and eight motorcycles destroyed in stunts.¹ The score was by Leonard Rosenman, an Academy Award-winning composer for Barry Lyndon (1975) and Bound for Glory (1976).²

Release and reception

The film opened in New York on 9 July 1975 and in Los Angeles on 27 August 1975.¹ The Numbers records a wide domestic release on June 27, 1975, and a domestic gross of $12,000,000.³

Contemporary reviews divided along predictable lines. The Hollywood Reporter (5 June 1975) and the Los Angeles Times (27 August 1975) commended the fast pace, the dimensionality of the characters, and the convincing nature of the Satanists' threat, while Variety (11 June 1975) and The New York Times (10 July 1975) found the film clichéd.¹ Time (18 August 1975) noted that the film marked the second pairing of Peter Fonda and Warren Oates, who had first starred together in The Hired Hand (1971); they were matched a third time in 92 in the Shade (1975).¹

Later assessments have been warmer. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 71% Tomatometer from 14 reviews and a 56% audience score.⁷ Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club gave it a B+, writing that it "gets by on engaging drive-in goofiness" despite flat, TV-style direction, and Time Out called it "a wittily efficient quickie... a winner all the way."⁷ On IMDb it holds a 6.6/10 rating from about 8,500 users.⁸

Genre context and legacy

Commentators place the film at the intersection of two 1970s currents: the occult horror boom that followed Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973), and the rural-road menace tradition of Deliverance (1971), by which the screenplay was reportedly inspired.⁶^•⁹ Scholars of 1970s horror list it among the "Supernatural Seventies Boom" of alternative-religion films, alongside The Wicker Man and The Omen.¹⁰ The University of Wisconsin cinematheque's note argues that the Satanic plot is functionally secondary to the film's atmosphere of suspicion and entrapment, closer in feeling to The Wicker Man than to Rosemary's Baby.⁶

A remake was reported in 2005: a 5 April 2005 Hollywood Reporter article said producer Chris Moore would make his directorial debut on the project, to be produced with Regency Enterprises, with writers Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan updating the script for a planned fall 2005 production start.¹¹ The original film remains available on digital platforms and had a 4K restoration screening at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, where co-writer and producer Wes Bishop, a nephew of Grand Ole Opry stage manager Vito Pellettieri, began his career in local theater.¹²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Religious and demonic horror films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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