The Car (1977)
Is it a phantom, a demon, or the Devil himself?
One of the things i loved watching that unfortunately isn’t really going on this year is Monster Madness - a thing they do over at Cinemassacre - because it introduces plenty of different spooky themed movies that I may not have seen before, and plenty of times olden ones. Although this doesn’t particularly fit into that - it does tie into that Angry Nerd tagline of “taking you back to the past” - to be specific, we are gonna hop back to old 1977. That’s old enough to be before even I, and a movie that’s based on something we still have totally all over now - cars! To be honest and specific, more like ghost cars! Look, spooky car’s isn’t an unheard of genre, heck, we’ve even done one over in the TISR section of here where we watched some dude get terrorized by an evil car in a parking garage. This time, we check not just a car, but The Car.
In a small desert town, everyday life is about to be disrupted. An unknown stranger has gone on a murder spree, causing the police from going to nothing but speeding tickets in 10 years to multiple vehicular homicide in just a single day. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to murder, and the police are scrambling to try and catch the perp before he strike again. The thing is - they might be in over their heads when the car turns out to be almost supernatural! The plot isn’t super heavy on twists and turns, nor is it intent on giving plenty of explanations. It’s a simple story of a murderous town and how it’s impacting some of the residents.
The actors need to make up for the story to keep plenty of folks entertained, I’m sure. It’s enough to facilitate the events, and provide the necessary terror of whose next and who might be safe - if anyone - but it’s simple as heck. So we’ve got some nice actors in here doing what they can with what they’ve got. It’s that older style acting where it can be a bit dramatic at times, but at the same time it’s quite enjoyable dynamics between the adult characters. It might not be the best of movies for some people’s modern sensibilities, what with some domestic violence and perhaps a little racism in there - but at the same time what’s a movie if not a time capsule of it’s time? The kids aren’t necessarily the best, but for their screen time they do have at least a few good lines and aren’t atrocious in their performance.
Somewhat tied to the acting is the car itself. It might seem a bit weird, given it’s a car, but the car does have a number of moments in which you could feel that it’s acting. It manages through it’s actions to give the impression of anger at times, which although somewhat cheaply achieved is still nice considering it isn’t just the default feeling like a stalker. I mean, yes there is plenty of that too, but it’s nice that it isn’t just a car running people over - it feels a bit like there’s some mysterious motivation that we can’t quite figure out driving the thing. There’s also a scene towards the end that evokes a bit of the finale of Alien. I shouldn’t oversell the car emoting too much, because it really is me overselling it, but it’s a nice touch considering it’s the main villain of the movie.
Car-o-vision.
The effects department is a bit of a mix. Some of the stuff doesn’t really look all that great - the final explosion is something, although I don’t really think that something is necessarily good. We do get plenty of car stunts in there - spinning around and “high speed” chases, as well as the expected crashes and overly explosive impacts. There’s a few manual spills as well - people falling off of things or getting spun aside and the like, but the overall level of violence is pretty small. Yeah, there’s a body count, but outside of some red on a corpse-sheet getting carried away, you really would be forgiven for not realizing a person is dead when they are dead, given the lack of modern indications of makeup applications. There’s also a nice drive-through stunt. Again, this is 1977, it looks pretty nice for the time, but it might not impress people nearly as much as some of the more modern car stunts with years of tech advancement to help make crazy things happen - which is funny, because some might be impressed with a few of the stunts because it’s and older movie.
Sound design has some stuff to work with here, although I will admit balancing isn’t always top notch. Plenty of dread can be arisen through the slow crescendo of the engine getting near, or the phantasmal wind that billows up and stirs the loose dirt whenever the car rips onto the scene. The horn blends a bit in at times, and I’m not always entirely sure if it’s the actual car horn or just part of the background soundtrack and effects. There’s a few times where it’s pretty obviously the horn, where it blows out some windows, but the point still somewhat stands. As mentioned though, there is a few times where talking will be quieter and sounds will be louder, and you may want to toggle the volume or turn on subtitles so you don’t miss some of those character-building lines or interactions.
For the most part, the movie doesn’t really show it’s age all that much. A few of the explosions look a little dated, some of the lines might be a little dated, and it does look pretty of it’s time, but watching it today it didn’t really feel stifled or disconnected from reality because of it’s age. Although it is possible that it could be slightly improved with a new coat of modern paint, it doesn’t really feel as though it would necessarily benefit from it either - it’s a pretty self contained little thing. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, and it uses tension pretty good. I could see an older audience at a different time yelling at their screens over it, although it doesn’t do much to actually frighten me after everything I’ve watched over the years and my mental disconnect of “it’s only a movie.”
Vision-o-car!
It’s a fun little watch, and it certainly doesn’t over stay it’s welcome. That said, it’s not without it’s little blemishes that could annoy potential watchers - it showing it’s age in a few lines or interactions, not getting all the answers (or any answers really), things like that. Past that though, there’s some nice stunts, acting is pretty decent, and it’s put together well enough that it’s fun for it’s run time. It might not carry the humor that some other evil car movies carry, but nothing wrong with that - sometimes you gotta try to be more serious to be more frightening.