Wheels of Terror (1990)

aka: Terror in Copper Valley
Dir: Christopher Cain

I don't think that grill is stock

Single mother Laura (Joanna Cassidy GHOSTS OF MARS) concerned about the safety of her daughter Stephanie (Marcie Leeds NEAR DARK) growing up in rough and tumble L.A. picks up and moves to sleepy Copper Valley, Arizona. There she takes a job as bus driver for the same school Stephanie is attending. I'd be suspect of working for a bus company that allows the chief mechanic Luis (Gary Carlos Cervantes who seems to have appeared in every television series since 1974) to ignore fixing an issue with a bus's reverse gear and instead install a racing engine (!) in said bus but Laura hops right into the driver seat.

Everything seems peachy in Copper Valley. Laura is making friends with the other parents. Stephanie has a shot at winning the local gymnastic competition. But Laura's hackles are raised by a dirty, beat up black Dodge Charger prowling around children at bus stops. An encounter or two later and Laura believes that the driver of the Charger is responsible for children going missing. And now it is coming after her and her daughter.

I wasn't expecting much for a made for television film that premiered on the USA network in 1990. Director Christopher Cain (YOUNG GUNS) points the camera in the right direction and there isn't much to Alan B. McElroy's (WRONG TURN) script. The film does come alive in the third act with Stephanie trapped inside the Charger and Laura putting that racing engine to good use by chasing after the Charger (with a couple of kids still on the school bus!). There are tense moments and exciting stunt work as school bus and Charger crash into one another; each driver maneuvering in an attempt to get the upper hand (tire?) on the other.

Emote, dammit, emote!

WHEELS OF TERROR ain't no DUEL. The plot is non-nonsensical but that is part of the charm of watching a Charger v. school bus heavy metal fight.

** 1/2 out of ****