It is hard to believe there was a time in this country when Americans shelled out thousands of dollars not just to drive vans as a primary mode of transportation, but to emblazon them with airbrushed fantasies of mermaids and Mickey Mouse and more, all of which look to have been dictated to a slumming Frank Frazetta by a toddler who forgot to take his Ritalin that morning. And yet here, to serve as historical record (and little else) is proof: Supervan. It is a movie that is likable against odds stacked higher than used tires.
Otherwise known as Vandora, the Supervan is a solar-powered, souped-up four-wheeler of the future, today! Designed for the film by Batmobile builder George Barris, who cameos as himself, the Supervan is the great white-and-red hope for the idealistic, yet unemployed Clint Morgan (Mark Schneider, The Premonition) to score the $5,000 prize up for grabs at the second annual Non-National Invitational Freak Out. (Results after feeding that through our patent-pending Outdated Slang Translator: “van contest.”) Consisting of events ranging from the “show-and-shine” and “wiggle-woggle” to its climactic mudslide competition, the Freak Out is sponsored by the corrupt Mid America Motors Corporation, whose cigar-chomping CEO, T.B. Trenton (Morgan Woodward, Final Chapter: Walking Tall), seeks to rig the games with his firm’s new gas guzzler, the Trenton Trucker.
Adding a wrinkle to this hackneyed conflict is that en route to the Freak Out, Clint saves a cute woman named Karen (Katie Saylor, Invasion of the Bee Girls) from being gang-raped by bikers, and she instantly assumes the plot position as our youthful hero’s stock sidekick-cum-girlfriend … despite being Trenton’s daughter. The story grows no more complicated than that; viewers will find more depth in the carpeted interior of any given van on display.
Directed by Lamar Card, who gave us the following year’s equally novel Disco Fever, Supervan is less a movie than an opportunity to show off enough bitchin’ rides and braless babes to capitalize on the of-its-time trend of action-comedies rife with speed traps, sheriff’s deputies with high blood pressure and CB radio-speak that demands subtitles; interestingly, this Missouri-made picture beat the hicksploitation granddaddy, Smokey and the Bandit, to theaters by a matter of months. With seemingly endless scenes of driving and dicking around, it exudes the spirit and storytelling of a feature-length Mr. Microphone commercial, albeit one in which a car can blow another up via laser beam.
Card and his cast work hard for every joke, without precisely knowing the proper structure of one; each gag tends to be missing either the setup or the punchline. Similarly, secondary characters saunter in, free of context or introduction, then disappear without contributing to a payoff. Among them is a lisping trio of gay men vanpooling to the Freak Out, with the driver sporting a “MAN HANDLER USA” T-shirt and the dash littered with copies of Playgirl magazine. Somehow, Supervan finds room for a moment of sheer horror as a shapely wet T-shirt contestant is embraced by none other than Charles Bukowski. Clutching a pull-tab beer and with his belly having escaped to the outside of his shirt, the legendarily alcohol-soaked poet looks more unkempt than any wrecked vehicle of your choice among all 91 minutes. —Rod Lott