The Wraith (1986)

Get your 80s overdose here in this synthesizer and hair metal-scored action/horror/juvenile delinquent flick about violent times on the Arizona highway. It’s where a gang of total assholes—bullies on the level of the creeps from Class of 1984—steal any car that catches their eye, via coerced (and fixed) races where the winner takes all, and aren’t above a little murder when someone really musses leader Max Cassavetes’ mullet. These guys know how to evade hard-boiled sheriff Randy Quaid so it’s up to a cosmic mystery man in a souped-up, solid black Dodge Turbo Interceptor (a car that still looks like a futuristic space ship thirty-one years later) to take these jerks off the street and put ’em in their graves. Exploding Corvettes, exploding punks, Clint Howard with Eraserhead hair, a 20-year-old Sherilyn Fenn in a red string bikini and some impressive car chases on a low-budget are some of the essential ingredients here. Then there’s Charlie Sheen brooding in an early role, looking like he’s spending more time studying the script for Platoon in between takes than caring much about anything that happens here. It’s a stupid good time, though. You’re not finished raiding the 80s trash movie time capsule until you’ve been rocked by The Wraith.