Rat Rod Rockers!

A while ago I have talked with director and writer of D.A. Sebasstian about Rat Rods and others things when he ask me If I would like to review his latest movie Rat Rod Rockers! I was interested so I agreed to. I am not big on underground and “campy” style films but since this one is about Hot Rods I had to give it a shot (plus free DVD, who would say know to that).

            So I got the movie in the mail a few days later, a long with pictures of some pin-ups (eye-candy). The DVD cover and it has that old style B-Movie look to it, so that’s what I was expecting.

            The movie is about a family the Mildues (seriously that’s there last name) who by a property in Anywhere, Washington that they do not know has money from an moonshiner named Old Man Kanker ( seriously that’s his name) and the Mad Kats car club are hired by the Russian Mafia to find the money from the property but the Mildues having just moved in makes this difficult.

            The movie is low budget, the quality isn’t Hollywood quality but is much better than phone or home camera quality and the acting isn’t great.

            There are a lot of Hot Rods in the movie! A lot, everyone in the small town owns a hot rod, even the Mildues own a 56 De Soto as there daily driver. There is  a black Model B Sedan, a 56 T-bird Gasser with a 514 big block stroker!, a Tri Five Chevy Gasser, a roadster and many other Hot Rods!

            I was disappointed that there wasn’t a lot of car action or car talk in the movie. The Hot Rods where used as just regular transportation and daily drivers. There was a short drag race between the 56 Hot Rod to Hell T-Bird and a 55 Chevy, as well as the only car chase I ever seen that started with Mr. Mildue spying on the Mad Kats and the Russian Mafia, trying to take a picture and he accidently Honks his horn and it ends with him running out of gas (I am not making this up).

When I was watching the movie I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first when I was watching it. It seemed really home made, with goofy acting, and a simple plot. I was disappointed that there was only one race scene, and one car chase and more foot chases in a movie titled Rat Rod Rockers. However after I watched the movie I kept thinking about it for a few hours afterwards and it became funny to me.

            The bad acting, the goofy names, the foot chases,the Character of Harold Mildue  it all seemed funny after I watched the movie. I actually started laughing about everything afterwards. Would really made the movie great was Harolds goofyness, the character tries to be the stereotypical 50s TV Father, however it seems more like his mind is stuck in the 60s. He is naive, light hearted, always happy even when he is locked up by the Russian mafia, he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.

            Other things that I started liking in my head was the Mad Kats Car Club and there “leader” Jimmy Knight’s determination to get on the Mildues property for the money any way possible. From trying to poses as government officials to claim the property had radiation which Harold doesn’t believe them, he tries get the Mildues out of the house long enough to go look around on the property which again back fires, so he decides to just try and kidnap the Mildues.

            Overall I liked the movie, when I first heard the name Rat Rod Rockers I was expecting a movie more like Two Lane Blacktop but in one town, with Rockabilly bands (the trailer on youtube showing the drag race also made me think of this) but instead I got an entertain, and very funny thriller film with lots of Hot Rods. The Film could be considered a parody of thrillers. If you like goofy, campy humor, low budget films, hot rods, rat rods, surf rock or rockabilly I recommend it!

PS the theme music will be stuck in your head for days!