Review of The Car (1977) by Ian Nicolás F — 05 May 2014

The Car sounded on the surface like nothing but a ridiculous horror movie, and yet it sounded so bad that it would be entertaining. So I decided to watch it in hopes of some decent exploitation and a fun B-movie experience.

It doesn't take long before The Car reveals itself as being the exact kid of film I expected. It opens with the titular car killing two cyclists by knocking them off a bridge in a scene full of cheap footage, weak acting and lame editing. It gives a perfect intro to the film because it immediately implies that the material will be a laughable cheap fun.

If you think that The Car is ridiculous, just remember one thing: the film is about a killer car. It is about a car that kills people for no explanation. It isn't a vengeful serial killer, nor is it a visual effects loaded beast on the hunt for a kill. It is a bloody car. The simple fact that a car is somehow killing people should leave you laughing and set you up for the B movie horror film that is The Car, and happily enough I enjoyed the film. I could go into a rant about how it is a flawed film, but I really don't have to because the film is called The Car and that is what it is about so all of its flaws should be predictable from the surface. The only really major flaw that still stands is that despite the plot of the film sounding like an exploitation theme, director Elliot Silverstein takes an approach which focuses more on taking the film too seriously for its own good. The Car doesn't have enough kills and could use a lot more blood and gore than it has and is more of a seriously thriller than a grindhouse feature, and that really isn't the right angle to take on a film like The Car. But then again there aren't too many right ways to handle a film like this, and for what it's worth, The Car delivers the unintentional laughs of a decent B-movie on just the right level to compensate for its lack of gore and for a lot of its scenes which are dominated more by extended periods of nothing but talking. At least those scenes boast the "benefit" of the screenplay that took three people to create without any of them realising its weak quality, as well as the poor form of the cast who cannot transcend the B-movie limits of The Car.

The script in The Car is ridiculous. Although the dialogue isn't as dumb as you might expect, it is very repetitive and almost seems as if the actors improvised every part of it. At one point Captain Wade Parent asks another man if the titular car had a number plate and the man says he doesn't know. Captain Wade Parent then asks what colour the number plate on the car is. Even Josh Brolin should realise the serious flaw in the writing, and the fact that he doesn't makes The Car even more laughable. It doesn't give anything to the cast, and they don't give anything back in the process.

Although The Car could use a lot more death scenes, the ones that it does have are perfect. I mean, people getting driven off bikes and off bridges in scenes of poor editing, cars exploding before they actually fall of the cliff which should destroy them and a car jumping through a house and coming out unscathed on the other side despite hitting a wall and killing a woman on the way and not causing any sound whatsoever. The death scenes in The Car are hilariously weak and well worth a laugh, lacking in blood and gore and the slightest bit of realism. So in its own way, The Car succeeds as an unintentional comedy. If somebody re-cut the film and added in a Charlie Chaplin soundtrack, it could be potentially hilarious, but even without such music The Car is funny enough to succeed as entertainment. And admittedly, the way that The Car went about attempting to create intensity was ok because the musical score was pretty good although rather repetitive. It did manage to create an edgy atmosphere, and it combined with the footage of the killer 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III gives a sense of realism to the horror. Although it is ridiculous, The Car does have a lot of nice footage which captures the strong and dry scenery of the location which gives the film its sense of isolation, as well as a gritty edge. And the car itself looks pretty cool, as well as the fact that the cinematography captures the movements of the vehicle really well by being shot from some strong angles and edited well with the exception of the death scenes which are still entertaining due to the poor editing job and the natural stupidity in the film.

Frankly, as far as low budget horror B-movies go, The Car si a decent example of a guilty pleasure even though it is lacking in sufficient blood and gore. It is like Stephen King's directional debut Maximum Overdrive except restricted to a single vehicle while having its universe expanded to an entire town and the cliffs that surround it. It is a mostly convincing film which is fun enough for fans of B movies and features a lot of unintentional laughs. The cast themselves aren't impressive, although James Brolin is a decent lead who supplies some level of grit and intensity to the role even though it is ridiculous material that he faces off with.

So although The Car is a B-movie which cannot escape the limitations of the genre and the general weakness that comes with being a story about a killer car, it is a mostly entertaining film as an unintentional comedy and a horror film that takes itself way too seriously which makes it a good bad film.