The Car (1977) – Review

In 1975, Jaws didn’t just terrify beachgoers, it handed Hollywood a very lucrative instruction manual: take one unstoppable threat, point it at a group of unprepared humans, and collect your cheque. Studios obeyed with the enthusiasm of people who had just discovered copy-and-paste. Two years later, The Car rolls in, politely asking why the monster even needs to be alive when it could just be… a really angry automobile.

The setup is beautifully simple, which is often code for “don’t think too hard about this.” A quiet Utah desert town is suddenly terrorized by a sleek, black, driverless car that barrels out of nowhere to flatten anyone unfortunate enough to exist in its general vicinity. The first victims, a young cycling couple, are introduced and eliminated with ruthless efficiency, the Car announcing itself not with a fin in the water, but with a horn blast that sounds like it clawed its way up from the underworld. It’s a nasty opening that immediately establishes this thing isn’t just reckless, it’s malicious.

Behold the Grill of Death.

The local law enforcement, such as it is, consists of Sheriff Everett Peck (John Marley), Chief Deputy Wade Parent (James Brolin), and Deputy Luke Johnson (Ronny Cox), who is battling alcoholism with all the success of someone bringing a water pistol to a forest fire. When a hitchhiker decides to flip off the Car and gets turned into roadside paste for his troubles, the body count starts to feel less like a coincidence and more like a hobby. Witness Amos Clemmons (R.G. Armstrong), who is somehow both useful and deeply unpleasant, adds to the confusion, especially when the Car appears to spare him for reasons that suggest even Satan has a code of conduct.

“So what are we thinking here, music hater?

Naturally, the initial theory is “crazy driver,” because nothing comforts the human brain like a bad explanation. But things get awkward when nobody can actually find a driver. Sheriff Peck’s attempt to impose order ends with him becoming a hood ornament, and Wade starts noticing unsettling patterns, like the Car selectively choosing its victims. Toss in an old Native American woman insisting there’s no one inside, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a supernatural revelation that everyone stubbornly ignores until reality punches them in the face.

“Boss, never doubt old ladies, they know stuff.”

Things escalate during a marching band practice because, apparently, even demonic cars appreciate a good public event. The Car glides along a ridge like a mechanical shark before charging straight at a group of children, only to be thwarted by a cemetery it refuses to enter. Lauren Humphries (Kathleen Lloyd), the schoolteacher and emotional anchor, buys everyone time, proving that sacred ground still has some pull, even on homicidal vehicles. From here, bullets bounce off, cars get obliterated, and Wade is forced to accept that he’s not chasing a criminal, he’s dealing with something that probably has a mailing address in Hell.

“You’re a chickenshit! Scum of the Earth, son of a bitch! “

From here, the confrontations escalate. The Car shrugs off bullets, crushes squad cars in spectacular stunt work, and even performs a gorgeous barrel roll over two police vehicles—one of the film’s signature action beats. In one tense moment, Wade empties his revolver at point-blank range into the windshield, only for the glass to remain unscathed. Then the door creaks open slightly, almost inviting him to look inside, before slamming him aside with a supernatural blast of force and vanishing in a flash of light.

“You have the right to remain parked!”

The showdown is gloriously absurd. Wade and Luke act as bait, standing exposed at the cliff’s edge until the Car charges them. At the last second, they leap aside, and the Car rockets over the cliff, right into Amos’s dynamite blast. For a moment, it seems destroyed… but Luke swears he saw a demonic face in the explosion.  Could we be getting a sequel?

The Devil is in the details.

Stray Observations:

• The townspeople keep assuming it’s a “crazy driver,” despite mounting evidence that the driver is either invisible, nonexistent, or taking the day off permanently.
• A man flips off a mysterious black car that just nearly killed him. Evolution is clearly doing its best, but some people insist on resisting.
• The police repeatedly try shooting the Car, as if it might suddenly remember it’s made of glass and feelings.
• Deputy Luke is told to cancel a public event during a killing spree… and just doesn’t. Truly inspiring workplace accountability.
• Wade leans in to look inside the Car after it’s demonstrated supernatural murder powers. Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it nearly got a deputy launched into orbit.
• Hiding in a cemetery works, which implies the Car respects property lines more than most humans.
• The Car spares Amos Clemmons, a known wife-beater, which raises uncomfortable questions about Hell’s hiring practices.

Professional Courtesy, perhaps?

What makes The Car work, against all odds and basic logic, is its absolute commitment to the bit. The film never winks at the audience. It doesn’t pause to explain itself in detail or apologize for its premise. It just presents a demonically possessed Lincoln Continental and says, “deal with it,” which is honestly refreshing in a world where everything needs three layers of lore and a prequel series. James Brolin does a lot of heavy lifting as Wade, grounding the film with a performance that treats the situation seriously even as it spirals into the absurd. Ronny Cox brings a quiet sadness to Luke, a man clearly losing his grip, while Kathleen Lloyd’s Lauren provides a warmth the film wisely doesn’t protect. Her abrupt death is one of the movie’s smartest moves, stripping away any illusion that narrative importance equals safety.

It’s a mean streak, but an effective one.

Technically, the film punches above its weight. Leonard Rosenman’s score deserves just as much credit, with its harsh, atonal blasts merging with the engine and horn to create a soundscape that feels genuinely hostile. The stunt work is fantastic, with the Car tearing through vehicles and terrain like it’s auditioning for a demolition derby hosted by Satan. The design of the car itself, courtesy of George Barris, is genuinely striking: low, sleek, and ominous, like it was built specifically to ruin your day.

Four wheels of utter terror.

Where the film falters is in its thin characterization and occasional pacing lulls. There’s only so much time you can spend watching people speculate about a car before you want the car to show up and start making decisions for them. But even in its slower moments, there’s a weird charm to how seriously it takes its nonsense. It’s not trying to be clever. It’s trying to run you over, repeatedly, and it succeeds more often than it should.

Note: Those of you who haven’t had the privilege of seeing this film yet may have seen The Car when it appeared in an episode of Futurama, which had Bender turning into a WereCar.

Want more proof that The Car is a movie worth checking out?  Kenner designed a game for children at home to play, and what I gather from the description is that kids placed objects at the bottom of the ramp, and each spin of the wheel brought The Car closer until one object would finally trigger The Car’s deadly run.  Sadly, the objects are just stop signs, park benches and pylons and not hitchhikers or pretty school teachers.  Even sadder is the fact that Kenner cancelled production plans, so this game never saw the toy store shelves.

I would have killed for this toy.

In the end, The Car is what happens when a studio takes the Jaws formula, removes the biology, and replaces it with pure, mechanical spite. It’s ridiculous, occasionally uneven, and built on a premise that collapses the second you poke it, but it’s also incredibly entertaining in its sheer commitment to that premise. There’s something admirable about a film that looks at a killer shark and decides the next logical step is a demon on four wheels.

It may not have Spielberg’s precision or polish, but it delivers a desert-set nightmare with enough style, atmosphere, and gleeful destruction to earn its place among the more memorable knockoffs of the era