I don’t know if calling this my favorite killer car movie is much of a compliment, but The Car has an endearing quality of being completely silly while also being completely serious. It’s not an undiscovered classic, but it’s a decent 90 minutes of entertainment. It is definitely smile-provoking in spots.
Tagline: “Is it a phantom, a demon, or the Devil himself?”
WTF Factor: ***
Notable comment:
Wade: “Looked like he smashed through our cars like he was stompin’ on bugs. I didn’t even see a scratch on him.”
Synopsis: The credits roll over a shot of the desert. We see two young bicyclists coming down the mountain. Here comes The Car. The Car comes up behind the bikes and over the railings they go. This is the one truly suspenseful scene in the entire movie.
We’re in the desert town of Santa Ynez. Police Captain Wade Parent (James Brolin) and art teacher Lauren Humphries (Kathleen Lloyd) are a couple; Wade has two daughters (future Real Housewives Kim and Kyle Richards). After an annoying scene of domestic life, we see a French horn-playing hitchhiker run over by The Car. The Car runs him over real good and backs up twice for good measure. Ouch. [Maybe it was the French horn.]
Wade and Lauren are friends with Deputy Luke Johnson (Ronny Cox) and his wife Margie (Elizabeth Thompson), a fellow teacher. Someone finds the female bicyclist’s body and Wade investigates. The Sheriff orders a roadblock to catch the offender. Meanwhile, Luke sneaks off to drink when he is supposed to be cancelling a school parade rehearsal. The Car shows up outside the police station that night and swerves around wifebeater Amos (R. G. Armstrong) to run over the Sheriff. Now Wade is in charge. A witness says that there was no driver in The Car but no one believes them.
The parade rehearsal is going on as planned and suddenly the wind picks up along with a minor dust storm. The Car is coming!
The Car chases the children and teachers into an old graveyard, but stops at the entrance. The motor revs a lot and the Car charges the gates and circles around the cemetery repeatedly, but it won’t come in. Lauren taunts it rudely and the Car leaves as the police approach.
Notable Dialogue:
Lauren [yelling at The Car’s driver]: “Hey, you! Why don’t you get outta your big ugly car, huh? We’d like to see what you look like. I’d like to see what a creep like you looks like!” [The Car drives in circles]
Lauren: “Well, come on, come on, get outta your car, huh? Let us all see what a lunatic son of a bitch you are! Come on, crawl out! I’ll let you crawl out! Oh, I got your story now! I see! As long as you’re in your car, you’re big, and you’re bad! Come on, let me tell you something, buddy. You know what you are? A chicken!” [The Car revs its engine]
Lauren: “You’re a chickenshit! Scum of the Earth, son of a bitch!” [and this in front of the children, who cheer Lauren when The Car finally leaves]
A deputy spots The Car and takes off in hot pursuit while other police cars close in. The Car takes a one-way drive up a mountainside but manages to turn around and push the deputy’s car over a cliff. It blows up real good. The Car then charges a roadblock with two police cars and does a flip on top of them so that they blow up real good too. Finally Wade arrives on his motorcycle. He stops and draws his gun. The Car stops, facing him. Bullets just bounce off the tires. The Car proceeds to knock Wade out ignominiously with its door when he approaches.
Wade wakes up in the hospital. He talks to two of his remaining deputies about the situation. Hmm, The Car is impervious to bullets, it avoids the graveyard, it sets up dust storms and wind. Lauren looks concerned. Wade sends her to stay with the kids although she has to stop at home first. Wade chews out Luke for not canceling the parade rehearsal and calls him out on the drinking. Meanwhile The Car is pissed off and coming for Lauren. As she stands outside her house the wind picks up and Lauren, frightened, calls Wade. She ends up flattened by The Car in her own living room. Wade is not pleased.
Luke hypothesizes that The Car could not enter the cemetery because it is hallowed ground. Wade is skeptical of this idea. They pull Amos, who owns the truck full of explosives, out of jail to help with their plan to destroy The Car. They fill up a police van with the dynamite, and Luke, Amos, and the other deputies head out to a nearby canyon to rig it with explosives. Meanwhile The Car comes into Wade’s garage while he is working in there. Add super-loud to the list of The Car’s superpowers.
Wade manages to escape and The Car chases Wade on his motorcycle. Then The Car turns around and starts chasing the police van. Wade lures it away and leads it into the canyon, where Wade dumps his cycle and climbs up a rope on the canyon wall, while the Car smashes into said wall repeatedly. Wade makes it to the top, followed by The Car, and Wade and Luke lure The Car over the cliff into the canyon. They detonate the dynamite and The Car blows up real good.
Luke starts to describe what he thinks he saw in the cloud but Wade tells him to keep it to himself. The end.
Thoughts: This has the definite feel of a 1970s made-for-TV movie, and was almost certainly inspired by Duel (1971) as well as Jaws (1975). The Car is devoid of gore and we never actually see the car hit anyone, although the results are never in doubt. The movie does a good job of making each attack slightly different. The Car’s antics, such as the rollover, are all practical effects, which is refreshing. The Car itself is a customized Lincoln Continental Mark III black coupe, which was designed by George Barris. Chances are, if you saw a cool-looking car on television in the 1960s and 1970s, it was customized by Barris (think the Batmobile, KITT from Knightrider, etc.).
One thing that lifts this movie above the ordinary is the stunning outdoor landscapes used extensively throughout. The Car was shot on location in a variety of well-known locations in Utah, including Red Rock Canyon State Park and Glen Canyon. The opening scene where The Car runs down the bicyclists was filmed in Zion National Park, including the famed Zion Tunnel. These vistas give an expansive feel to the entire enterprise.
There is a refreshing lack of exposition and explanation. We are left with the impression that The Car was perhaps possessed by some sort of demon, but the vehicle itself is highly unusual, so where did it come from? In the scheme of the movie, it really doesn’t matter much.
The acting is decent but the characters are pretty flat, with the exception of the drunken wifebeater, Amos, who comes through in the end. He was noticeably unrepentant about his bad behavior before he went to jail; one wonders if he has a true redemption arc. The character question that most stuck in my mind is the relationship between Wade and The Car. At one point, the movie clearly shows The Car swerving to avoid hitting bad guy Amos, and choosing to run down the good guy Sheriff. So why does it repeatedly avoid going after Wade, until the very end? It could have easily run him over multiple times, but the worst Wade gets is a swing of the car door when he tries to peek in the window. Hmm.
The Car had the bad luck of opening in theaters the week before Star Wars was released; it bombed rather badly. It has developed a cult of followers over the years since.
Random bits:
- Guillermo del Toro likes this movie so much that he had a duplicate car made for driving around Los Angeles.
- The movie originally started with a quote from Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, taken from the Satanic Bible. This has disappeared over the years.
- Contrary to Internet legend, Wade does NOT say to Margie, “The Car is in the garage.”
Suggested double feature: Duel (1971) or Killdozer (1974)
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “A Monster With the Power to Turn Living Screaming Flesh Into Stone!”
