BAD GEORGIA ROAD
Color, 1977, 87 mins. 29 secs.
Directed by John C. Broderick
Starring Gary Lockwood, Carol Lynley, Royal Dano, John Wheeler, John Kerry, Cliff Emmich

MAG WHEELS
Color, 1978, 81 mins. 18 secs.
Directed by Bethel Buckalew
Starring John Laughlin, Shelly Horner, Phoebe Schmidt, Verkina Flower, Fredrick Schmidt, Craig Horrall
VCI (Blu-ray & DVD) (US R0 HD/NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9)

United under the banner of Hot Rods and Hot Chicks, this Blu-ray double feature of prime '70s drive-in offers a vivid sample of what filled double and triple features throughout the 1970s. Promising "two Southern-fried speed classics," it's actually just half Southern but does show the range of vehicular entertainment you could find at the time including one of the craziest "vansploitation" movies ever made. Both are also notorious for being recycled under multiple titles over the years in theaters and on TV and home video, but neither have looked nearly as good as they do here for decades.

First up is the more star-studded of the two, Bad Georgia Road, the first of a tiny handful of films directed by John C. Broderick (The Warrior and the Sorceress, The Swap), a fairly busy producer behind films like Capone, Showdown in Little Tokyo, and Howling VI: The Freaks. Hot off the Irwin Allen made-for-television disaster favorite Flood! along with many other TV roles, Carol Lynley stars as Molly, a snooty city gal who finds out she's inherited a piece of Georgia land she can cash out in person for $100 grand. Upon arriving she learns the deal isn't nearly as sweet as it appears, with a legal fast one leaving her with a run-down moonshine operation on her hands. Cornered, she decides to make the best of the situation with hard-drinkin', hard-livin' moonshine runner Leroy (2001: A Space Odyssey's Lockwood), along with sharp-shootin' Arthur (Dano). Soon the law and rival bootleggers get wind of Molly's operation, setting the stage for car chases and a massively uncomfortable romance between our leads that starts as horribly as possible.

Initially released theatrically by Dimension Pictures, Bad Georgia Road feels geared to play in pretty much any U.S. territory without ruffling too many feathers with its soft R rating. Both of the stars flash a little skin, but apart from one scene that felt icky at the time and fares much worse now, it's pretty middle of the road as far as these things go. Shot in Southern California and titled Molly until very late in the game (thus the obvious replaced title card), this was packaged with a variety of car mayhem movies through the rest of the decade and appeared on VHS from companies like United Home Video. That's why this has been with VCI ever since, including a lackluster 2012 DVD easily eclipsed by the surprisingly strong presentation here from a 4K scan of the original negative. It isn't a visually dazzling film by any means, but those familiar with VCI's track record will probably be surprised by how strong it looks and sounds here.

By almost unanimous consensus, the second film here, Mag Wheels (a.k.a. Summer School), is the superior of the two with an awareness of how disturbing its subject matter actually is. This was one of the last films by unheralded exploitation legend Bethel Buckalew, who directed all those Southern-fried nudie movies for Harry Novak (like Sassy Sue, Country Cuzzins, The Pig Keeper's Daughter, etc.). Here it's fun in the sun and surf, at least at first, as stud muffin jerk Steve (Crimes of Passion's Laughlin, credited as McLaughlin here) and his buddies ride around in their van and hang out at the beach with plenty of girls including Donna (Flower), Steve's girlfriend. Enter Anita (Horner), the new girl in school who catches Steve's eye and sends Donna into a jealous tailspin. Anita's home life with her jerk dad doesn't make life any easier for her, while Donna comes up with an incredibly nasty payback plan that escalates into a potentially fatal automotive showdown along a cliff. Other hijink subplots of varying degrees of seriousness take up the rest of the running time, though the casual nastiness here is treated with surprising seriousness and makes for a counterpoint to the apparently endorsed nonstop comic cruelty in the same year's Grease. As a snapshot of van culture this one is tough to beat, and the exploitation goods here include a rough cat fight, some brief bits of nudity, and an insane final "romantic" scene that will leave your jaw on the floor.

Mag Wheels also gets a nice new scan here on Blu-ray (which for the record continues VCI's slathering of tacky AI on its covers) from the negative looking quite a bit healthier than past releases (including more than one DVD floating around as Summer School), and both films have good LPCM 2.0 mono tracks with optional English subtitles. Audio commentaries for both films are provided by Rob Kelly, who of course knows his stuff and makes for engaging company for almost three hours juggling production info, cast and crew trivia, and funny observations about the obligatory exploitation elements sometimes wedged in at inopportune times. Also included are a 3m15s gallery of random exploitation posters, a VHS-sourced trailer for the first film, and a nice new film scan of the second film's trailer as Summer School.

Reviewed on October 31, 2026