Pit Stop

Bluray + Dvd

Release Date: June 23, 2015

Released By: Arrow Video

Cast:  Brian Donlevy, Richard Davalos, Ellen Burstyn, Sid Haig

Run Time: 91 Minutes

Synopsis:

“RAW GUTS FOR GLORY! FLESH AGAINST STEEL! The most dangerous game ever devised, to pit man against man, flesh against steel – the figure-8 race! Jack Hill (Coffy, Foxy Brown) follows up Spider Baby, once again teaming up with Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses) in one of his greatest roles for this action-spectacular crash-o-rama! Richard Davalos (East of Eden) stars as Rick Bowman, a street punk who winds up in jail after a street race goes wrong. Bailed out by race promoter Grant Willard, Davalos is put in the deadly track where he comes up against Haig’s maniacal winner Hawk Sidney. Featuring an outstanding supporting cast including Brian Donlevy (The Quatermass Xperiment) in his last film appearance, Ellen Burstyn, billed as Ellen McRae (The Exorcist), and Beverly Washburn (Spider Baby), Pit Stop is one of Hill’s lesser known films but arguably his greatest. Filmed on a real figure-8 track, Hill and his crew were able to capture gripping real-life car wreck scenes lending the film a brilliant sense of realism. You’ve never seen a motion picture like this before. Can you take it?”

My Review:

When I saw that this movie was being released, I didn’t think much of it because I had never heard of it before. Which is the same with a lot of releases by Arrow Video. Fortunately for me, most times that I go into their releases blindly, I’m glad that I did. Pit Stop is a gritty “bang em up” style car racing movie, that I couldn’t help but enjoy. The story is basically about a guy who has no care in the world, that will do anything for money. In this particular case, it’s racing. There are many things that I enjoyed about this movie but the one thing that stuck out in my mind most, was how surprising my emotions towards the main character would change from the beginning of the movie, to the end. It was nice to see a movie that wasn’t predictable for a change. The main character really stuck out to me because in a lot of movies, you know what his/her motives are…but not with this one. Just when I thought I had him figured out, I realized that I didn’t. You’ll see what I mean once you check it out for yourself. The acting and portrayal of each character in this movie was done well. In addition to that, the racing scenes were a lot of fun to watch. The Figure 8 races were crazy, especially because a lot of it were filmed from live events. So when you’re watching these cars crash into, and flip over each other…that really happened, and not just as stunts for the movie. I did however, feel that the some of the racing scenes were sometimes a little bit too long, and I was watching the same thing over and over again. It wasn’t anything too bad but it did cross my mind a few times. As far as the Picture Quality goes, it wasn’t bad by any means but it wasn’t perfect either. It’s the best that you’re going to get from an older black and white movie. The Audio Quality was fantastic, making the racing scenes sound like you were actually at the race. In addition to all of that, this set is jam packed with tons of special features, adding so much more to the overall worth of it. I can’t say that it’s one of my favorite movies but I did have a lot of fun with it, and I recommend you checking it out, and/or picking it up.

Special Features:

New High Definition digital transfer supervised and approved by director Jack Hill

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation

Original Mono 1.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)

New UK exclusive audio commentary with director Jack Hill moderated by his biographer Calum Waddell

Crash and Burn! – Jack Hill on the making of Pit Stop

Drive Hard – Actor Sid Haig speaks about his experience of acting in Pit Stop

Life in the Fast Lane – producer Roger Corman on the genesis of Pit Stop

Restoring Pit Stop – Restoration demonstration with Technical Supervisor James White

Original Trailer

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jay Shaw

Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Glenn Kenny and musicologist and writer Gray Newell on the film’s soundtrack, illustrated with original stills and artwork

Overall Rating:

6.5 Out Of 10 Stars