The Car (1977)

In 1977 — the summer of Son of Sam and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love — the appetite for a more modern style of horror cinema was rapidly growing after years spent on a steady diet of Hammer Film Productions movies during the formative years. Hammer Horror had been the bread and butter of horror fandom growing up, but as a new decade approached, Christopher Lee’s fangs were no longer quite enough on their own. There was now a yearning for a more contemporary kind of horror — something grounded in the modern world.

The 1970s had already begun breaking barriers and setting entirely new benchmarks, with The Exorcist raising the bar through its realism and groundbreaking special effects. Night of the Living Dead had already paved the way, followed by The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which introduced a new brutal, unflinching, in-your-face realism that left audiences reeling across the world.

The gentler, if eerie, worlds of Rosemary’s Baby and The Haunting had given way to a harsher realism that permanently changed the shape of the horror genre.

Then came 1975 and one of the most successful films ever made — a brilliantly executed horror film about one enormous toothy fish terrorising the swimmers of a small town called Amity.

Jaws became a box-office juggernaut and unleashed a tidal wave of imitators featuring whales, barracudas, piranhas, killer fish, crocodiles, alligators, grizzly bears, yetis, snakes, dogs, cats, rats, cockroaches — virtually every living creature imaginable was suddenly fair game in Hollywood’s frantic attempt to cash in on the biggest cinematic phenomenon of its day, at least until Star Wars arrived.

The Car appeared in 1977, only a few years after Steven Spielberg himself had directed what remains arguably the finest “evil vehicle” movie ever made in the superb made-for-television thriller Duel.

One of the more unusual Jaws offshoots, The Car did not involve an animal at all, but a murderous vehicle — and oddly enough, it proved more effective than most of the countless Jaws imitators that flooded cinemas during the period.

Where Spielberg’s Duel featured a gigantic truck with an unseen but presumably human driver, The Car functions much more like Bruce the shark from Jaws — an apparently supernatural force that kills not out of hunger, but seemingly for the sheer pleasure of destruction.

The simplicity of the premise, along with the deliberate refusal to explain anything, ultimately becomes one of the film’s greatest strengths. The result is essentially a “Jaws on wheels” horror movie that turns out to be surprisingly entertaining and often genuinely effective.

The Car itself cuts an extraordinarily menacing figure as it thunders down from the barren desert mountains in search of victims who appear to be chosen entirely at random. The vehicle was heavily modified specifically for the production, resulting in one of the most iconic devil cars ever committed to film — a machine that would not have looked remotely out of place roaring through one of the Mad Max films.

It is a magnificent sight and bristles with menace — a major reason why this modest little B-movie works as well as it does.

The plot wisely never attempts to be more clever than necessary. At heart, it is simply a stripped-down cat-and-mouse battle between an unstoppable evil force and the innocent townspeople unfortunate enough to find themselves in its path.

Yes, it is undeniably a silly and hokey B-movie. But it is also a surprisingly well-executed one, packed with gripping and occasionally quite frightening scenes. Whenever The Car itself appears onscreen, the film becomes terrific popcorn entertainment — provided, of course, that you are not the sort of viewer who demands strict logic from a movie like this.

Suspend disbelief, keep expectations sensible, and there is a great deal to enjoy in this forgotten and largely overlooked little horror nugget.

James Brolin and Kathleen Lloyd both give solidly straight-faced performances that help prevent the film from tipping over completely into self-parody — something it could very easily have done in less capable hands.

By modern standards, the pacing may occasionally feel uneven, and the film is certainly not gruesome by today’s horror standards, but it nevertheless contains several genuinely well-mounted and tense sequences.

Far from being a classic horror film, The Car nonetheless rises above its goofy premise with remarkable ease and surely deserves recognition as one of the finest Jaws-inspired spin-offs ever made.

It remains ideal late-night viewing material: amusing, entertaining, well-acted, occasionally tense, and surprisingly effective. Remarkably enough, the film has stood the test of time extremely well and remains just as enjoyable today on Blu-ray as it was back in 1977.

The Car itself has lost none of its menace over the years. The desert setting, the ominous honking announcing its arrival, and the perfectly straight-faced performances all contribute enormously to the atmosphere.

One of the truly great B-movies of the 1970s.

I still feel privileged to have experienced it in a cinema during its original release, where it made an immediate impact. Nearly fifty years later, it remains every bit as entertaining.

A recent remake has apparently surfaced, though thankfully it seems to have disappeared without leaving much of a trace.