The Car (1977) Universal/Horror RT: 97 minutes Rated PG (violence and language) Director: Elliot Silverstein Screenplay: Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack and Lane Slate Music: Leonard Rosenman Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld Release date: May 13, 1977 (US) Cast: James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, Ronny Cox, R.G. Armstrong, John Rubinstein, Elizabeth Thompson, Roy Jensen, Kim Richards, Kyle Richards, Kate Murtagh, Robert Phillips, Doris Dowling, Henry O’Brien, Eddie Little Sky, Lee McLaughlin, Margaret Willey, Read Morgan, Ernie Orsatti, Joshua Davis, Geraldine Keams, Hank Hamilton, John Moio, Melody Thomas, Bob Woodlock, James Rawley, Louis Welch, Bryan O’Byrne, Don Keefer, Steve Gravers, Tony Brande, Michael Butler. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
I may have been too harsh in my earlier assessment of the supremely silly horror film The Car. My mistake was looking at it like I would a normal movie. It’s NOT normal. It’s about a car possessed by Satan or some other demon. It goes on a deadly rampage in a small desert town. It’s up to the ill-equipped sheriff’s department to stop it in its tracks. It’s hardly the stuff of Shakespeare or Fellini. Quite the opposite, it’s trash. It’s more fit for the auto junkyard than the cinema. If you look at it like that, The Car is kind of fun.
I first saw The Car on network TV when I was 12. Although I knew it would be edited for television, I was looking forward to the scenes I heard described by classmates lucky enough to have cable. In one of them, the movie’s opening scene to be exact, a pair of bicyclists have an unlucky run in with the titular vehicle. In the other, a French horn-playing hitchhiker gets run over multiple times by the car. It’s a cool preface to the main action of The Car in which the local cops slowly realize they’re dealing with more than a driver with a serious case of road rage.
Santa Ynez is the sort of small, middle of nowhere town where nothing remotely interesting ever happens. Oh, it has its share of drama. One guy, an explosives expert named Amos (Armstrong, Children of the Corn), beats his wife. A deputy (Cox, Beverly Hills Cop 1 & 2) is a recovering alcoholic. The hero of the picture, Chief Deputy Wade Parent (Brolin, The Amityville Horror), is involved with Lauren (Lloyd, It Lives Again), a teacher at the school attended by his two daughters (real life sibs Kim and Kyle Richards). Okay, it’s not exactly Peyton Place, but it’s not a ghost town either.
The sleepy town wakes up when the black Lincoln Continental appears and starts making road kill of the townspeople. It’s the most action the local police department has probably ever seen. When the sheriff (Marley, The Godfather) becomes victim number four, Wade finds himself in charge. A Native American woman who witnessed the hit and run claims that nobody was driving the car. Wade, of course, is skeptical about this particular detail. All he knows is that everybody is in danger. He sets up road blocks, sends out a BOLO and puts a neighboring town on alert. He also asks the school to cancel marching band rehearsal that day which they don’t. Expectedly, all hell breaks loose when the car shows up. Lauren takes charge and hurriedly shepherds the frightened children into a cemetery where she proceeds to hurl insults at the “driver” who, for some reason, refuses to enter the cemetery.
I think we all know why the car can’t enter the cemetery. Altogether now, IT’S SACRED GROUND! And now feels like the right time to raise the biggest question I have about The Car. Although nobody comes
right out and acknowledges it save for the deputy who’s back on the bottle, it’s obvious the car is possessed. Why not perform an exorcism? I don’t know if it’s the fault of the writers or the dim characters, but nobody ever considers it. Come on! It’s one of the primary conventions of demonic possession movies. Surely there’s a priest in this town. If not, there’s a sizable Native American population. I’m sure they have a ritual for this sort of thing. Either way, nothing along these lines ever happens. You’d think with Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey acting as “technical advisor” an exorcism would be a given. Nope! Instead, the cops devise a plan involving a trap and a ton of explosives provided by a suddenly reformed Amos (no longer a rude a**hole).
Directed by Elliot Silverstein (Nightmare Honeymoon), The Car is a weird mash-up two popular subgenres, the car chase movie and the demonic possession flick. It’s best enjoyed with your brain idling in neutral. It’s goofy as all get out. Even funnier, everybody plays it straight including Silverstein. A movie about a possessed car can only be so serious. On the other hand, it can just as easily veer into parody which would definitely be the wrong road to take. Basically, the main problem with The Car is one of tone. Silverstein struggles with it a bit, but it’s only a minor bump in the road. It’s a fun ride for the most part. There’s a cool chase involving several police cars and vehicular destruction. However, the scene that stands out for me is when the car drives right through a house to claim its intended target. Not only that, it drives away without a scratch. Did I mention it’s indestructible and impervious to bullets? Well, it is.
Oddly enough (okay, not odd at all!), the car gives the best performance in The Car. Maybe that’s why it got top billing on the poster. The acting by the human actors is overwrought and, at times, unintentionally funny. Brolin tries his best to act the hero, scowling and pumping out his chest, but he can’t overcome the inherent silliness of the material. Lloyd is simply terrible. Their characters’ romantic involvement never comes off as believable. Early on, after spending the night together, Lauren tells Wade that she just wants his two daughters to like her. This conversation, as well as the subsequent one between Wade and the girls, feels rehearsed and artificial. On top of that, the writers drop this part of the story altogether.
Cox overacts mightily as the deputy losing his grip on sanity as his own personal demons come back to haunt him. Henry O’Brien (Tom Sawyer) has the range of a wooden Indian. Marley is about the same as to soon-to-be retired sheriff. The Richards sisters convincingly play the standard-issue cute kids. Okay, acting isn’t this film’s strong suit. What did you expect? The Car isn’t exactly Oscar bait. There were definitely no writing awards in the realm of possibilities either, not with all the dopey dialogue forced on the deserving actors. Check out what Lauren yells at “the driver” from the safety of consecrated ground:
“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!”
And you’re going to love the threat issued to the soon-to-be dead hitchhiker by Amos:
“If I hear another sound out of that thing, I’ll ram it so far up your ass, you’ll be farting music for a year.”
Pure poetry, no? How did the Academy overlook this?
I wouldn’t say The Car is a sleek, slick ride. It’s junk, pure junk. We’re talking about a mechanized rip-off of Jaws here. I love how Silverstein tries to lend credibility to the whole stupid shooting match by opening with a quote from LaVey himself: “Oh great brothers of the night, who rideth upon the hot winds of Hell, who dwelleth in the devil’s lair; Move and appear!” And if that’s enough, it close with the promise of a sequel set in L.A.
The secret to getting good mileage from The Car is to just go along for the ride. It may not be the smoothest ride, but it’s an enjoyable one. It’ll get you to where you’re going.
