Today, the first trailer for the upcoming Death Race 2050 barreled onto the Internet like a methed-up speed demon plowing through a crowd of toddlers. But before we can start to sort through the smoking wreckage, a brief history lesson:

After seeing this headline, some may have started to wonder when they released 2,049 Death Race movies without anyone noticing. The title refers to the futuristic setting of the film, a natural follow-up to Roger Corman’s 1975 trash classic Death Race 2000. But there’s still plenty of confusion to go around — Death Race 2050 will pick up where the Paul Bartel-directed original left off, overwriting the history set down by Paul W.S. Anderson’s 2008 remake, and that film’s two direct-to-video sequels. So though 2050 technically qualifies as the fifth Death Race film, we must all treat it like the second. Got it? Good. NOW BEHOLD.

Cars drive fast. Lotsa ‘splosions. The production values look like the result of a fourteen-dollar budget. In other words, it’s a Death Race movie, exactly as it should be.

Returning to the same schematic as the previous films — depraved racers compete in a lethal game where every body splayed on the pavement has a point value — director G.J. Echternkamp taps TV stalwart Manu Bennett for the role of our hero Frankenstein, a mantle previously held by David Carradine and Jason Statham. His chief enemy this time around will be portrayed by none other than Malcolm McDowell, a British thespian who once worked with Stanley Kubrick, and is now doing this.

With the Death Race pictures, what you see is what you get. If campy action set pieces and dumb-dumb hilarity masquerading as social satire (Onepercentia!) get your motor running, then keep an eye out for the home-video release when it rounds the corner on January 17 of next year.

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