One can imagine the meeting in which three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen was confronted with the opportunity to star in a new film by Paul Anderson. She might have thought back to last year’s Oscar landslide and said, “Oooh, ‘There Will Be Blood’?” To which the producers of “Death Race” on the other side of the table would surely have exchanged a furtive glance and replied, quite truthfully, “Oh yes, yes. There will be blood.” One can also imagine Joan’s embarrassed chagrin when she realized after signing the papers that there are two Paul Andersons at work in Hollywood. There’s Paul T. Anderson, who directed last year’s Best Picture, “There Will Be Blood,” as well as “Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights” before that. And then there’s that other one, Paul W.S. Anderson, the half-assed helmer of videogame schlockstrosities like “Mortal Kombat,” “Resident Evil” and (shudder) “Alien vs. Predator.” Sorry, Joan. The papers are signed.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s latest insult to the senses, “Death Race,” is a loosely based retread of celebrated grindmeister Roger Corman’s delightfully overblown 1975 gore fest, “Death Race 2000,” in which mated teams of drivers and navigators battle it out on a high octane, transcontinental rampage, competing to beat their rivals to the West Coast and rack up points for mowing down every innocent civilian they encounter along the way. The original film had an evil emperor to overthrow, insidious rebel factions sabotaging the game and throngs of cheering fans simply intoxicated by pure gladiatorial bloodlust. A breakneck exercise in unqualified blood-gushing mayhem, the original was shocking, colorful and absurd in every way.

Beyond the flick’s sticky, blatantly exploitative trappings, it managed, as some of the best worst movies do, to knead some political, comical and satirical into its visceral.

The next generation’s “Death Race” does away with most of that. Anderson has described his approach as a Chris Nolan-inspired “Batman Begins” style reboot. His plan was to dig into the source material and figure out how such madness could possibly evolve in the “real world.” While the original took place in the race’s 20th televised season, this one is just in year six. This race, broadcast to a faceless, never-seen, interweb subscription audience, removes any sense of forward momentum by taking place on a closed track located on a maximum security prison island. It involves only the most father rapingist, mother stabbingist criminals imaginable. The vehicles, souped up, bored out, armed and armored though they may be, have been stripped of virtually all color or distinguishing marks. The evil president emperor of the original is reduced here to a prison warden/reality show producer (though a foul-mouthed, ball busting corporate dominatrix. Hi Joan!) In what may be a sad concession to contemporary political correctness, there are no points for murdering innocent civilians. Apparently, as Chris Nolan’s Joker recently asserted, no one will flinch as long as it’s just gangbangers getting executed—that’s all part of the plan.

Regardless of how gentrified this direction may appear, the movie manages to stay on track in a couple of important ways. First of all, the explosions, collisions, crashes and smashes were all filmed in real time with real cars and real drivers. If there’s been a backlash against computer generated effects of late, this should be its poster child. There’s an undeniable thrill to seeing what happens to these apparently unstoppable forces when they encounter as many immovable objects as they do.

Secondly, when those gangbangers get splatted, they do it with authority. They explode like raw hamburger balloons. The kills are few and far between, but when they come, they’re inventive and surprising, and they completely blindside you. (Extra credit for the ciggarette lighter kill.) It’s vile. It’s gross. It’s great.

And that’s the thing. Though this movie is horrible in almost every way, plagued by hackneyed dialogue, poor acting (sorry again Joan, we know you did your best with what you had), bad music, and a hopelessly tire spinning plot (it might help to think of it as “Caranisqaatsi”), this movie is trying to fool no one. It’s 50 tons of rolling metal death attempting simply to capitalize the “car” in carnage and the “canon” in “Cannonball Run.” In that, it absolutely succeeds.