| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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THE CAR
Rating: 
USA. 1977.
Director – Elliot Silverstein, Screenplay – Michael Butler, Dennis Shyrack & Lane Slate, Story – Butler & Shyrack, Producers – Silverstein & Marvin Birdt, Photography – Gerald Hirschfeld, Music – Leonard Rosenman, Visual Effects – Albert Whitlock, Special Effects – Bill Aldridge, Jack Faggard, Paul Hickerson & Ed Kennedy, Makeup – Rick Sharp, Art Direction – Lloyd S. Papez, Car Customizing – George Barris. Production Company – Universal.
Cast:
James Brolin (Wade Parent), Kathleen Lloyd (Lauren Humphries), Ronny Cox (Luke), Henry O’Brien (Chas), John Marley (Everett Peck), R.G. Armstrong (Amos Clements)
Plot: A mysterious black limousine appears in the small Arizona town of Santa Ynez, randomly running people down. Witnesses claim the car has no driver and as the police attempt to stop it, its eerie feats convince them they are dealing with something supernatural.
The Car appears to have come about when some producer had the idea of doing a land-based version of Jaws (1975) and then in a great moment of inspiration also decided to throw in some of the other reigning contemporary box-office hit The Exorcist (1973) for good measure.
Abused by a whole lot of people for its sheer stupidity of concept, The Car is actually rather entertaining. The action scenes are both spectacular and suspenseful – like the scene where the car deliberately rolls to smash over the top of the two cop cars and comes out on the other side completely unharmed; or the mano-a-mano confrontations between it and sheriff Brolin in the wide-open midst of a highway or his own garage, it taunting him by revving and threatening to crush him every time he moves.
The human scenes are rather badly played – there’s some terrible light relief with deputy John Rubinstein joking about fart music and rehearsing pick-up lines, and an awful performance from Henry O’Brien as an Indian. But the exercise comes with a stripped-back neatness – in any other version the car would no doubt symbolize all manner of things, but Silverstein and co have no concern with subtext or even explanation of what is going on, the film just ‘is’. And after awhile its lack of explanations even seem to have their own inner sense – it seeming perfectly logical that the car should be unable to enter hallowed ground and that it should sit outside a graveyard responding with angry revs and donuts of impotence as Lloyd insults it.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1991
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