June 24: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Cars! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I’m a big fan of killer car movies. We can subgenre this into filones, such as possessed automobiles (The Car, Christine, Ferat Vampire, Maximum Overdrive, Super Hybrid), killers in vehicles (Duel, Joyride, Death Car on the Freeway, Death Proof, Wheels of Terror) and movies that have killers who get in and out of cars (The Hitcher, Hitcher In the Dark).  There are even ones where the hero drives a car to get revenge (Rolling Vengeance, The Wraith, The Gladiator).

Mirage is somewhere in the middle of these, as a black pick-up truck is seemingly driven by a young man who could also be a demon. And all he wants to do is kill everyone that comes to his desert to make out.

My wife lived in Vegas for a few years and when I went out to meet her family, we went and shot guns in the desert and had a picnic. She said no matter how many times she went to parties or events in the middle of said desert, she never saw anyone just take off their tops and get drunk in the middle of a place where you get dehydrated immediately.

Chris (Jennifer McAllister) and Greg (Kenneth Johnson) are introduced to us as they’re making love in the back of their truck with a toolbox on the accelerator as it just drives out in the infinite space of the desert, as if nothing could stop it or hurt them. Along with another couple who are just as into arguing as they are having make-up sex, Trip and Mary (Kevin McParland and Nicole Anton), and her ex Kyle (Todd Schaeffer) and his new girlfriend Bambi (Laura Albert), the desert seems as good a place as any — I recommend a furniture store like in Chopping Mall — to soft swing. Also: Kyle is Greg’s brother, which suggests that Chris is a horrible person.

Yes, after a day in the sun of being stalked by a black truck and having Greg and Kyle get in a punchup, the kids find a note written in blood that says, “You are all going to die!” This note is more than prophetic as the driver of the black truck even has grenades that he uses to blow these kids up real good. Thanks to Unsung Horrors, I learned that the bad guy — known only as Villain in the credits — is B.G. Steers, who may be Burr Steers, who was one of the radio voices in Reservoir Dogs and the “Flock of Seagulls” character in Pulp Fiction. His character — other than the out there Trip, who dies bleeding from the mouth and speaking of the astral plane.

Steers, if he is Burr Steers, also directed 17 Again, Igby Goes Down and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

This was directed by William Crain, who also made Midnight Fear, and co-wrote it with Chuck Hughes and Michael Crain. It’s interesting in that there are too few desert and daytime slashers, even if you can see Chekov’s bow and arrow appear from the very open of the film. Also: the best part is when one of the jocks utters a gay slur and promptly gets run over by a truck. Well, the best part other than the effects by R. Christopher Biggs, who went on to work on Demolition Man and the TV series Martin. One imagines he transformed Martin into Sheneneh.

Strangely, this movie has an SST Records soundtrack with bands like Sister Double Happiness, Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Dinosaur Jr. What, no Saint Vitus or Negativland?

My friends from Unsung Horrors did an episode about this, which you can listen to here:

You can watch this on YouTube.