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The film:

  • Awesome Music:
    • You got Ozzy Osbourne, Stan Bush, Mötley Crüe and Billy Idol among many 80s metal musicians in the soundtrack. And then there's the synth score by Michael Hoenig and J. Peter Robinson, performed entirely on a New England Digital Synclavier synthesizer.
    • Lion's "Never Surrender", which plays during the Car Chase.
    • La Marca's "Hold On, Blue Eyes", which plays during the love scene between Jake and Keri at Willow River.
    • Tim Freehan's "Where's The Fire?" is pretty awesome to the point where it serves as musical bookends to the film.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It has a cult following in Japan, with the film being considered a solid American take on a tokusatsu anti-hero story. The Wraith's design would go on to even be a partial inspiration for the character VRV Master in Gekisou Sentai Carranger or his Power Rangers Turbo counterpart: The Phantom Ranger.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Both Stan Bush and Lion have songs in a movie about cars with special abilities. Now where have we seen that before?
  • Narm: There's a lot of overwrought acting, especially from Clint Howard and the kid who plays Billy Hankins (though to be fair to Matthew Barry, Billy's a teenager having a very stressful week).
  • Narm Charm: Despite the aforementioned overwrought acting, the film is still highly enjoyable.
  • One-Scene Wonder: The couple in the Daytona who Packard and his gang harass in the opening scene as a villainous Establishing Character Moment, stealing their car and threatening to rape the girl. The two are decently expressive throughout it all.
  • Tear Jerker: The ending is a big tearjerker. After The Wraith kills Packard, Keri is walking home. She sees The Turbo pulling up to her house and is scared at first and sees The Wraith in person. The Wraith then transforms into Jake, which confuses her at first until he reiterates that she knows who he really is. She realizes then that Jake is a reincarnated version of her dead boyfriend, Jamie Hankins and hugs him relieved to seeing him again. He tells her to pack her things, while he runs off on an errand. We then see Billy cleaning up his restaurant after his earlier beating from Packard. He almost hits Jake with a bat thinking Packard came back for another fight, but lowers his bat when he sees who it is. Jake tells him, it's time for him to go, but not before handing him the keys to the Turbo. Billy's at first confused, but then awestruck when he sees the car parked at his restaurant. The last line brings him from confusion to tears.
    Billy: Hey Jake Who Are You?! Who are you, bro? *beat* No... it couldn't be. Jake!! JAKE!!! JAMIEEE!!!!


The comic:


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