The Wraith (Film Review)

1986 New Century Vista Film Company
Written and Directed by: Mike Marvin
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Nick Cassavetes, Sherilyn Fenn, and Randy Quaid
MPAA: PG-13; Running Time: 93 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

A teenaged boy hooks up with the wrong girl and gets beaten to death by a ruthless racing gang. Sometime later, a mysterious stranger wearing a weird black spacesuit enters town, driving a rad black car. He challenges each of the gang members to a race...and the losing prize is death. Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen also enters town on a motorcycle, and strikes up a romantic relationship with the wrong girl. Who can blame either guy, though, when the wrong girl in both cases is Sherilyn Fenn?
The Wraith is pretty damn weird and makes little sense. Charlie Sheen headlines the film, though he shot all his scenes in one day, and often seems tangential to the plot and onscreen action. Most of that action involves a glorious, specialized Dodge Turbo Interceptor, one of the coolest cars in any movie, ever. The movie the car finds itself in, though, is 1986's The Wraith.
So yes, this film makes no sense. The logic of its world holds together about as well as the villains' race cars.. Then again, it's Charlie Sheen and Sherilyn Fenn, a cool-ass car, and for some reason one of the best soundtracks of the '80s, featuring a bunch of massively popular artists who would generally headline a much less The Wraith type of film. It's not "good," but in this case "good" is subjective. It's 93 minutes of fun, senseless stupidity, and I don't regret watching it, even if I'll never watch it again.