# Race with the Devil
**Race with the Devil** is a 1975 American action-horror film directed by [Jack Starrett](https://www.edgepedia.org/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](https://www.edgepedia.org/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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) • [2](https://eofftv.com/race-with-the-devil-1975/)
| 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 Fox[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) • [3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Race-with-the-Devil) |
| Runtime and rating | 88 minutes, MPAA PG, color by DeLuxe, Westrex sound, Panavision equipment[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) |
| Principal cast | Peter Fonda (Roger Marsh), Warren Oates (Frank Stewart), Loretta Swit (Alice Stewart), Lara Parker (Kelly Marsh), R.G. Armstrong (Sheriff Taylor)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) |
| Key crew | Director Jack Starrett; writers Lee Frost and Wes Bishop; producer Wes Bishop; executive producer Paul Maslansky; cinematographer Robert Jessup; music Leonard Rosenman[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) • [2](https://eofftv.com/race-with-the-devil-1975/) |
| Stunt toll | Sixteen cars, two trucks, and eight motorcycles were destroyed in the film's stunts, per an 8 August 1975 Los Angeles Times report[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) |
| Box office | $12,000,000 domestic gross[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Race-with-the-Devil) |
| Working title | *So Mote It Be*, a reference to the threatening note the cultists attach to the motor home's broken window[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) |
## 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](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-antonio) in Frank's new motor home for a ski vacation in Colorado.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) • [4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/race-with-the-devil/) 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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL)
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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) 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](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/race-with-the-devil/umc.cmc.5oc3fgu76t06pk1b7w0d5jqtr) 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](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/race-with-the-devil/) • [6](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/)
## Production
[Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) The production employed over one hundred Texas actors and crew, including director of photography Robert Jessup.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL)
**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](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/) Producer Paul Maslansky solicited the work of "Satanists and black magic experts" as extras, lending the cult scenes a claimed verisimilitude.[6](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/)
The physical production was expensive in hardware: an August 1975 report counted sixteen cars, two trucks, and eight motorcycles destroyed in stunts.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) The score was by Leonard Rosenman, an Academy Award-winning composer for *Barry Lyndon* (1975) and *Bound for Glory* (1976).[2](https://eofftv.com/race-with-the-devil-1975/)
## Release and reception
The film opened in New York on 9 July 1975 and in Los Angeles on 27 August 1975.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) The Numbers records a wide domestic release on June 27, 1975, and a domestic gross of $12,000,000.[3](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Race-with-the-Devil)
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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL) *Time* (18 August 1975) noted that the film marked the second pairing of Peter Fonda and [Warren Oates](https://www.edgepedia.org/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](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL)
Later assessments have been warmer. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 71% Tomatometer from 14 reviews and a 56% audience score.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/race_with_the_devil) 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](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/race_with_the_devil) On IMDb it holds a 6.6/10 rating from about 8,500 users.[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073600/ratings/)
## 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](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/) • [9](https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/race-devil-spare-solid-sharply-paced-horrorroad-flick/) Scholars of 1970s horror list it among the "Supernatural Seventies Boom" of alternative-religion films, alongside *The Wicker Man* and *The Omen*.[10](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/63060/1/Your_God_Had_His_Chance_and_He_Blew_It__Modernity%2C_Tradition_and_Alternative_Religion_in_1960s_and_1970s_Horror_Final_Edit3_2.pdf) 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](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/)
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](https://www.edgepedia.org/regency-enterprises), with writers Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan updating the script for a planned fall 2005 production start.[11](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL-?cxt=filmography) 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](https://www.edgepedia.org/grand-ole-opry) stage manager Vito Pellettieri, began his career in local theater.[12](https://www.belcourt.org/films/race-with-the-devil/)
## References
1. [Race with the Devil (1975), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL)
2. [Race with the Devil (1975), The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television](https://eofftv.com/race-with-the-devil-1975/)
3. [Race with the Devil (1975), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Race-with-the-Devil)
4. [Race with the Devil, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/race-with-the-devil/)
5. [Race With the Devil, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/race-with-the-devil/umc.cmc.5oc3fgu76t06pk1b7w0d5jqtr)
6. [Race with the Devil: A Trip Gone Bad, UW–Madison Cinematheque](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2024/07/15/race-devil-trip-gone-bad/)
7. [Race With the Devil, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/race_with_the_devil)
8. [Race with the Devil (1975) Ratings, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073600/ratings/)
9. [Race with the Devil: A Spare, Solid, Sharply Paced Horror/Road Flick, Tilt Magazine](https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/race-devil-spare-solid-sharply-paced-horrorroad-flick/)
10. [Your God Had His Chance and He Blew It: Modernity, Tradition and Alternative Religion in 1960s and 1970s Horror, University of East Anglia](https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/63060/1/Your_God_Had_His_Chance_and_He_Blew_It__Modernity%2C_Tradition_and_Alternative_Religion_in_1960s_and_1970s_Horror_Final_Edit3_2.pdf)
11. [Race with the Devil (1975), AFI Catalog (history notes)](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67192-RACE-WITH-THE-DEVIL-?cxt=filmography)
12. [Race with the Devil, The Belcourt Theatre](https://www.belcourt.org/films/race-with-the-devil/)
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*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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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license