ROLLERCOASTER (1977) *
Rollercoaster, a thriller that combines Peter Bogdanovich’s vastly superior Targets, a disaster movie, and a mad bomber movie, marked the first time I returned to an amusement park since that fateful day on family vacation this past summer at Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana.

Everything was fine and dandy, we even maintained social distance and wore our masks as often as possible, until 16-year-old Emily wanted 12-year-old Isaac to ride on a roller coaster. She said he promised that he would try at least one roller coaster with her, he said that he made no such promise, she won’t ride on a roller coaster by her lonesome, he did not budge and refused to ride, and they eventually broke into hysterics and went their separate ways. Emily followed my wife Lynn and I back into the main body of the park and she frequently groused about her younger brother, while Isaac stayed behind and wept for the state of the world or something on a bench.

Two hours later, Emily decided to go to the car and she found Isaac sleeping on a bench just outside the park en route to the parking lot. No big deal, he said, he was tired, so he walked off, walked out, and took a nap. He did look a little refreshed.

I virtually walked the entire length of Holiday World twice over looking for Isaac to no avail and I lost count of every Beatles, every Beach Boys song the park blasted that day over the loud speakers. I had precise numbers, and they were gone. Lynn and I were obviously not pleased with either Emily or Isaac, and this is the first time I have spoken publicly about that Sunday afternoon in a place seven hours away from home.

The best thing about Rollercoaster, aside from the fact that it finally ended, is that it put that day in Santa Claus in perspective. I mean, yeah, at least we didn’t have happen to us what happened to the characters in Rollercoaster, especially at the 10-minute mark in the movie when our resident mad bomber (just call him The Mad Bomber with No Name who apparently represents something about our fears) played by Timothy Bottoms blows up a section of track and spectacularly derails a roller coaster. Needless to say, Universal Studios released Rollercoaster — in Sensurround, which Universal head Sidney Sheinberg called as big as any star in the movies — in June ’77 and a little release named Star Wars blew it away. Universal made just one more film in Sensurround. Big star?

Bottoms’ bomber presents one fundamental problem, because we never learn even his name or his motivation or much of anything ’bout him or even see that he enjoys being a mad bomber. He’s a cipher who’s not even mad enough in either way to justify being called a mad bomber. So when he meets his inevitable demise in the film’s grand finale, I felt no joy and only relief because it finally put this two-hour movie to pasture where it can rest in manure for eternity.

Here’s that perspective: Rollercoaster and that ordeal in Holiday World both lasted about two hours in real time, and both felt much longer. Yeah, I don’t much care for roller coasters in real life or captured on celluloid.

In closing, I should mention that Helen Hunt and Steve Guttenberg make their feature film debuts, iconic actors Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark appear here strictly for the money, and the eccentric rock band Sparks reportedly calls their cameo appearance in Rollercoaster — where they perform two songs from their 1976 LP Big Beat — the biggest regret of their career.