I just sat through THE CAR (1977) for the first time, a film I was sure I saw ages ago, but it turns out I had it confused with its era's other diabolical road mayhem movie, 1975's RACE WITH THE DEVIL.
THE CAR has no plot to speak of. It's just a feature-length showcase for vehicular homicide committed on the streets and desert highways of a Utah county by a driverless, indestructible black coupe — a highly-customized Lincoln Continental Mark III from the workshop of the legendary George Barris, the guy who brought us the classic Batmobile and many others — punctuated by moments meant to make us care about the hapless cops who attempt to thwart its rampage, but they're basically a bunch of ciphers. The narrative, such as it is, plays exactly like an entry in the slasher boom that was just over the horizon, only with the slasher being an apparently demonic car and no actual gore to speak of, and, just like a proper slasher movie, the bare minimum attempt was made at characterization, but you won't care about any of the characters. They exist solely to get mowed down.
Adding a new wrinkle to rodeo.
If I did not know for certain that it was meant to be 100% serious and scary, I would swear THE CAR was made as a played-straight parody. Plus, it has the look and feel of a padded-out made-for-TV horror-action hybrid of the type that was fairly common on U.S. television at the time, but I can immediately name made-for-TV efforts that were more entertaining and legitimately scary. The whole endeavor reminds me of something I would have done in my backyard with my toys when I was seven. (I had a sweet Corgi toy of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow that I would pretend was driving around a miniature town I had constructed with blocks and Legos, mowing down plastic pedestrians with heedless abandon. What can I say? I was a bored 2nd-grader.)
To sum up, while not terrible, THE CAR isn't very good and it's one of the dumbest horror movies I've ever seen, and believe me when I tell you that I know from dumb horror movies. Worth seeing once, but when it comes to attempts at blending road action exploitation cinema with horror, you'd have more fun with the superior RACE WITH THE DEVIL and the more recent DRIVE ANGRY (2011), the latter starring the ever-batshit Nicolas Cage.
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