EAT MY DUST: SUPERCHARGED EDITION
(not rated)
MOVIE: *1/2 (out of 5)
DVD EXPERIENCE: *1/2 (out of 5)
STARRING
Ron Howard as HOOVER NIEBOLD
Christopher Norris as DARLENE KURTZ
Warren Kemmerling as SHERIFF NIEBOLD
Dave Madden as BIG BUBBA JONES
Jessica Potter as LALLIE CHANDLER
Rated PG
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Directed by: Charles B. Griffith
BY KEVIN CARR
As a fan of genre cinema and generally crummy movies that evoke nostalgia, I greatly appreciate Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s recent releases of the Roger Corman collection. Some films, like “Death Race 2000” are awesome to watch again on DVD. Others, like “Big Bad Mama” are generally pretty lame.
“Eat My Dust,” while wildly profitable for Corman, falls in that latter category. The film holds historical cinematic significance for catching the Ron Howard wave at the start of his “Happy Days” career and eventually being the gateway for him to start directing. (Part of the deal to get Howard in the film was for Corman to allow him to direct his own film, the similarly-themed “Grand Theft Auto.”)
But strip away all of this, and it’s just a dumb little car chase movie. Sure, for low-budget cinema, it’s pretty decent. It reminds me of the kind of films I saw on the late-night movie show in Toledo while I was going to college.
The film tells the story of a dorky son of a sheriff (Howard) who steals the car of a prize-winning stock car racer. He does this to impress a girl (Christopher Norris, who looks great through most of the film in her little hot pants), who is into going fast. The plot doesn’t do much rather than serve a means to the end of car chases and stunt gags.
For nostalgic cinema, it’s not bad. But if you really want to see a car-chase film, you’d be better off renting “Death Proof,” Quentin Tarantino’s homage to this genre.