The Car (1977)

THE CAR (1977)

Dir: Elliot Silverstein

6/31 #31daysofhorror

We can all agree that Duel (1971) does not feel like a made-for-TV movie even though it was. It’s almost as if Elliot Silverstein decided he wanted to mix Duel and Jaws (1975) together but remove their cinematic elements and create the atmosphere of a TV movie. But then, release it in theaters.

“As your father once said to me.... Forget it, I would have made it up anyway!”

We watch as a driverless custom-made 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III stalks the highways and byways of a sand-scorched town seeking meaningless death at every turn. Up against this demon vehicle, are a series of the most endearing characters you’ll ever meet. Even the cyclists that get car-ed at the beginning are discussed later, which makes you feel for them, after the fact. James Brolin and Kathleen Lloyd make an adorable couple, but it’s Lloyd who steals the show. First, she grabs Brolin by the balls and tells him they have no time to screw around in the morning, then she stands up to a prudish teacher after confronted with a nude drawing a student made, and ultimately, she runs a crowd to safety and belittles the devil car. She tells it, “You're a chickensh*t! Scum of the Earth, son of a b*tch!” Even if it’s not our leads chewing up a few scenes, we get the weight of a relapsed alcoholic deputy, the death of a sheriff and the immediate promotion of someone not up to the task, a wife-abusing owner of a dynamite company forced to help save the town, and a veteran that hitchhikes his way through the desert and ponders the idea of farting music.

While The Car may feel slower in the middle, the melodrama is hard at work to make you fall in love with every single characters. And when they meet their respective fates, it makes it all the more heart wrenching. We even get Kyle and Kim Richards – Kyle a year before Halloween (1978). The overwriting of the characters is the secret element that makes The Car so lovable. Without this ingredient, we’d never stop laughing at a car that can jump several feet in the air or suddenly appear inside a locked garage.