The Wraith
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| The Wraith | |
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 The Wraith DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Mike Marvin |
| Produced by | John Kemeny |
| Written by | Mike Marvin |
| Starring | Charlie Sheen Sherilyn Fenn Nick Cassavetes Randy Quaid |
| Music by | Michael Hoenig J. Peter Robinson |
| Cinematography | Reed Smoot |
| Editing by | Scott Conrad Gary Rocklen |
| Distributed by | New Century Vista Film Company |
| Release date(s) | November 21, 1986 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Wraith is a 1986 action/science fiction film, directed and written by Mike Marvin.
Contents |
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A small town has been harassed by a group of drag racers for months unopposed. Then a mysterious black car shows up, and challenges members to a race; killing them afterwards. Neither the gang nor the police can catch the car, and the driver's identity remains unknown.
The driver is in fact Jake, who was killed by the gang and has returned as "The Wraith" in order to exact his revenge.
- Charlie Sheen — The Wraith/Jake
- Nick Cassavetes — Packard Walsh
- Sherilyn Fenn — Keri Johnson
- Randy Quaid — Sheriff Loomis
- Matthew Barry — Billy Hankins
- David Sherrill — Skank
- Jamie Bozian — Gutterboy
- Clint Howard — Rughead
- Griffin O'Neal — Oggie
- Chris Nash — Minty
- The Turbo Interceptor driven by The Wraith was the Dodge M4S concept car, which cost an estimated $1,500,000.
- The Dodge M4S was powered by a Mopar 2.2 Inline "Trans" four cylinder engine (also used in the Dodge Daytona, Dodge Aries, etc.) that produced over 400 horsepower thanks to twin Cosworth turbochargers.
- The abbreviation M4S stood for Midengine, 4 cylinder, Sport. The original car was built by Dodge and PPG industries to be used as a Pace Car for sprint racing venues.
- 6 prop cars were built, 4 of which were dummies and destroyed during filming. The other two were the stunt cars. One is currently being restored at www.thewraithcar.com.
- The film is dedicated to the memory of Bruce Ingram, an assistant cameraman who was killed during the filming of a chase sequence.
- Charlie Sheen almost didn't do the film because of a schedule conflict with his next film role. After some negotiations and planning, it was arranged for Charlie to shoot all of his scenes in the first two weeks of production. Once wrapped, Charlie caught a flight from Tucson to Manila to begin working on Platoon.
- Packard Walsh drove a 1973 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray with a custom paint job and a nose clip; Oggie drove a 1986 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z; Minty drove a 1977 Pontiac Firebird with a highly-visible (but apparently not functional) supercharger; Skank and Gutterboy drove a beat-up 1966 Plymouth Barracuda; Rughead drove a 1985 GMC Sierra; The couple who are cheated out their car in the first race was a 1987 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z. The squad cars were a variety of 1986 Dodge 600s, 1982 Plymouth Gran Furies, as well as 1980 Chevrolet Malibu 9C1. Sheriff Loomis drove an "civilian" 1986 Dodge 600.