San Antonio's Race with the Devil

I-10 deadly? Who knew?

We at Missions Unknown love to laud the current generation of filmmakers churning out exploitation cinema in the Alamo City, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking no one has done it before.

Why, the mid-’70s film that would emerge as the Big Bad Daddy of all Satanic Road Trip Movies (were there really any others?) was filmed in an around San Antonio, including the towns of Bandera and Leakey.

That’s right, folks, the 1975 occult thriller RACE WITH THE DEVIL, starring Warren Oates, Peter Fonda, Loretta Swit, Lara Parker and a veritable army of creepy small-town weirdos is as local as a plate of puffy tacos.

Likely fueled by the popularity of chase pics including TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (which starred Oates) and DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY (which starred Fonda) and Satanic-themed horror movies like THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY’S BABY, director Jack Starrett decided to meld the two genres into a cheap-and-dirty B-cinema thrill ride.

In the movie, buddies Roger (Fonda) and Frank (Oates) and their wives Kelly (Parker) and Alice (Swit) depart San Antonio in an RV, headed for a Colorado vacation. If you listen closely, you can even hear Alamo City conservative talk show blowhard Ricci Ware on the RV radio as they split town.

The couples camp in a sparsely populated area, where they happen to see a Satanic cult conduct a human sacrifice. The shocked vacationers report the crime to the local sheriff, who dismisses their claim. Soon, it becomes apparent that the sheriff and half the state’s townsfolk are members of the ghastly cult. (Guess that may explain why Texas continues to be a Red State.)

The rest of Race with the Devil is one long chase scene, where the crazed cultists attempt to take out the heroes’ RV, Road Warrior style. Along the way, you get poisonous snakes, motorbikes, shotguns and even a convoy of satanic truckers. How can you possibly go wrong?

Starrett, perhaps sensing that sensationalism was a great sales tool, later claimed that he hired real-live Satanists to play the cult members. Born and raised in the tiny South Texas town of Refugio, the director also made a similar Texas-is-the-Devil’s playground film called A Small Town in Texas.

Fans of S.A.-bred cinematic sleaze take note: Race with the Devil is available on DVD.