THE CAR (1977)

 

(Director: Elliott Silverstein. Screenwriters: Dennis Shryack, Michael Butler and Lane Slate.)

 

Review

Released stateside on Friday, May 13, 1977, and inspired by Steven Spielberg’s 1971 television film DUEL, CAR opens with narrator Anton LeVey quoting the Satanic Bible’s “Invocation of Destruction” (“Oh great brothers of the night who rideth upon the hot winds of hell, who dwelleth in the Devil’s lair; move and appear”). While LaVey does this, the titular vehicle appears in a wide-angle, aerial shot, driving through the desert toward the small town it will shortly menace.

The possibly driverless, tank-solid satanic car cruises around the town’s periphery, immediately killing two bridge-crossing bicyclists. The police, led by Sheriff Everett (John Marley), investigate the suspicious deaths, not convinced they’re accidental. Not long after that, a hitchhiker’s hit-and-run death is witnessed by a violent drunk (Amos, played by R.G. Armstrong) and his battered wife (Bertha, played by Doris Dowling). The hunt for the murderous vehicle is on.

Shortly after this, lead deputy Wade Parent (James Brolin) takes charge of the investigation. Car chases, crashes, explosions (cop cars damn near explode when looked at), building destruction, and a few deaths follow. The car─a canny opponent, with its distinctive, disconcerting horn─is often simultaneously terrifying and hilarious when it circles, lunges toward, and revs its engine at its potential victims.

Can the Car be stopped? Watch and find out!

CAR’s cast is great. Brolin (THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, 1979) is his usual stalwart, masculine self as Wade Parent. Kathleen Lloyd (IT LIVES AGAIN, 1978) played Lauren Parent, Wade’s schoolteacher wife and mother of their two children. Kim Richards played Lynn Marie Parent, Wade and Lauren’s oldest daughter; Kim’s sister, Kyle (HALLOWEEN, 1978) played Debbie, the Parents’ youngest daughter. Ronny Cox played Luke, an emotional, alcoholic deputy.

The actors’ performances are enhanced by their well-sketched characters, whose deep links to each other are palpable, sometimes emotionally involving.

CAR is a PG-rated terror flick─there’s no blood, no actual harm shown to its victims. It’s a fun, if plot-lite and silly work that deftly balances demonic overtones, humor, and small-town pathos. Given its basic storyline and writing, it’s best viewed as a modern-day fable with cheesy 1970s FX with a better-than-its-B-material players and behind-the-camera talent. While not a good film, it’s often entertaining.

(For the Car-curious: the titular, striking-in-appearance vehicle was─in real life─a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III black coupe, its roof three inches lower than usual and its side fenders longer and lower than usual. It had no visible exterior door handles. Its chrome-plated, deep-recessed Cragar wheels and its interior-shade/exterior-amber laminated windows lent the car a menacing, indestructible look. The car’s distinctive, alarming horn tone was the Hadley Ambassador Rectangular Bell horn. The car was modified at the request of the movie’s director by George Barris, famous for customizing Hollywood vehicles, including the Batmobile [Batman, 1966-8]. There were four of these cars made for the film, the main one costing eighty-four thousand dollars at the time.)

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)

 

(Director: Stuart Rosenberg. Screenwriter: Sandor Stern, screenplay based on Jay Anson’s book of the same name.)

Storyline

A dysfunctional, cash-strapped family move into what they believe is a demon-possessed house.

 

Review

1975. A year after the gruesome murder of the DeFeo family, the Lutzes─in emotional and financial distress─move into the cursed murder house, later revealed to be built on a Native American burial ground.

From the get-go, the briefly shown, melodramatic DeFeo murders set the tone for this atmospheric, blood-in-your-popcorn demonic house-possession flick. If you’re a viewer like me, you might laugh a lot, occasionally jump during the barrage-rush of AMITYVILLE’s miasmic mood and obvious-horror-trope terror scenes, which really put the unreliable in unreliable narrator, supposed occurrences that, if they happened, have easily spotted, non-supernatural explanations.

Some of these tropes include: flies swarming inside the house and on windows; demon-stalked Catholic priests and a nun, made sick by an unseen force; extreme, in-a-second temperature changes within the house and doors that slam by themselves, without warning; George Lutz (James Brolin, THE CAR, 1977) has trouble sleeping and routinely wakes up at 3:15 a.m., the exact time Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family (in real life he claimed he “heard voices”); the hidden, bizarre “red room” behind a basement wall; animalistic, glowing eyes appearing in windows; and so much more!

What makes this potboiler devil-haunted abode flick work is the talent involved in its making. Camera shots are seen in extreme closeups or from a distance, as if characters are being watched by an unseen someone or something. Lalo Schifrin’s constant-state-of-alarm score maintains the film’s pulse-racing tempo (whether those emotions are laughter or terror), Robert Brown’s editing further enhances Sandor Stern’s brisk, constant-jolts screenplay while Stuart Rosenberg’s direction matches its mood and pacing.

The cast, who often scream and yell at top volume at the drop of a penny, is great.

James Brolin’s George Lutz is a man under visible strain, pale and creepy as he stalks around the yard and house with a constantly sharpened axe. Margot Kidder (BLACK CHRISTMAS, 1974) is excellent as Kathy Lutz, an argumentative, passionate Catholic who hums the love theme to SUPERMAN, 1978, while washing dishes. Their name-changed kids, Greg (K.C. Martel, THE MUNSTERS’ REVENGE, 1981), Matt (Meeno Peluce, Dio’s  "THE LAST IN LINE" video, 1984, directed by Don Coscarelli) and Amy (Natasha Ryan, THE ENTITY, 1982) are appropriately reactive, especially Amy who’s enthralled by her imaginary, satanic-porcine friend, Jodie.

Rod Steiger (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, 1967) is volatile and loud as Father Delaney, who’s repeatedly attacked by the long-range demon. Don Stroud (SWEET SIXTEEN, 1983), as Father Bolen, imbues his secular psychiatrist-priest with quiet, urgent humanity. Murray Hamilton (JAWS, 1975) once again plays a bureaucrat (this time as Father Ryan, a church administrator) who puts maintaining the status quo above obvious human safety.

Other notable players include Helen Shaver (THE CRAFT, 1996) as Carolyn, the Lutzes’ psychically sensitive, basement-exploring acquaintance. Val Avery (FRIDAY THE 13^th:THE SERIES, 1988 episode) is his usual solid and understated self as Sgt. Gionfriddo, who’s called to 112 Ocean Avenue, after George reports a break-in, which appears to be a breakout.

AMITYVILLE’s climax is wow-cataclysmic, with an abrupt and crazy-shots finish. Based on Jay Anson’s supposedly nonfiction 1977 book, this is a risible, fun, and iconic late-Seventies flick.

Suggestion: if you buy it, try to purchase it used. Wouldn't want the con artists who perpetuated this hoax (George and Cathy Lutz, Ed and Lorraine Warren and their estates) to further profit from it.