(first posted 10/31/2015) Halloween is upon us, and soon the neighbor kids in my building will be knocking on doors for treats – wearing all sorts of costumes that are cool, gory, or just plain weird. Part of me enjoys watching today’s kids partake in the annual candy-fest that my ultra-conservative parents forbade in our household when my brothers and I were growing up. I was already in the seventh grade the first time I was allowed to go trick-or-treating with my middle school friends, with my mom finally then realizing (at around my current age) that letting her sons knock on doors and ask for candy once a year wasn’t going to lead us to life behind bars or participation in the occult. It’s also possible that perhaps Mom was just trying to avoid dentist bills. Realistically, it was probably a combination of all of those things, but let’s move forward.
It was around this time of my life that I finally started watching scary movies, including Elliott Silverstein’s “The Car” from 1977 – by then a ten-year-old film. I had wanted to watch this flick after reading an article in the National Enquirer that had stated “The Car” had come back to life and had started killing people again. Rotten Tomatoes may have skewered it, but this movie effectively destroyed my sleep for months after I first watched it on VHS. It truly terrified me, with my fear amplified by my bedroom’s placement on the lower half-level of our house, facing the street, directly in front of our driveway. The movie’s original trailer is below, Rated PG:
I remember staying at my grandparents’ farm in rural, northwest Ohio for the first time after having watched this movie. The crunching sound of car wheels on their gravel driveway would immediately freak me out. And then there was the roar and rumble of semis and their trailers roaring past their house on Ohio State Route 281, in the middle of the night. “NnnnnNNNYOOOOONNNNnnnnn…” Any random, black Lincoln Continental sedan from the 70’s was immediately suspect. Today’s flood of memories got me thinking…what is it about a car that makes it appear sinister?
Let’s look at the titular ’74 Caprice Classic ragtop. Something seems innately unwholesome about a once-expensive, high-end cruiser that has been allowed to deteriorate to this condition over time. It literally looks haunted. Ever notice how haunted houses in movies are just broken enough, but also look amazingly structurally sound for their cosmetic deficiencies? Sure they creak, and doors and windows rattle, but porches usually aren’t falling over and the roof is usually still there. Similar to that kind of abandoned house on the silver screen, this Caprice didn’t appear to have any major structural issues (on the surface, anyway) – just the rot and decay of its sheetmetal skin and the smell of rolling, impending automotive death (motor oil, gas, decomposing vinyl). It also had its demented, Cheshire Cat grin of a front grille reflecting glints of light in the darkness of the street.
Has there ever been a movie with a beautifully-styled car in great condition that was successfully cast as a villain? Let’s immediately take “Christine” out of the picture. By the time Arnie Cunningham was done restoring that red, ’58 Plymouth Belvedere, it looked like something I would have loved to own and drive. I think the early “Forward Look” Chryslers look amazing, and it’s a shame about the quality. I was also so furious by the wanton destruction of so many classic cars in that movie that I was unable to completely suspend my disbelief and fully enjoy the story.
As for this Caprice, my search for the truth is officially over. This is what happened to Baby Jane.
The ’74 Chevrolet Caprice Classic was photographed by the author in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, in November 2010 and March 2011.
Most horrifiying things about that poor Caprice are its 5 mph bumpers.
I dunno, I miss bumpers you didn’t have to worry about the first errant parallel parker leaving a scratch on.
those battering rams were worthless in a collision on road at any notable speed. get over it, grandpa. modern cars are designed to sacrifice themselves to save you.
Someone’s trailer hitch bar punched a neat hole in my plastic rear bumper while I was in Aldi this spring. Fortunately, I’d already ruined the corner of it backing into an unseen bollard in a parking garage.
Ever seen “Jeepers Creepers”?
Well, we went the opposite way and don’t participate any more, but back in my early college days, by best friend and I decorated my Vega and drove around terrorizing small children one October 31. I had a CB radio with a PA speaker under the hood, and we’d drive slowly past a group of kids and growl loudly. Those kids are probably still paying for therapy today!
Ed, that is the coolest, both in concept and execution. What kid wouldn’t be scared of that? Also, did your Vega then later terrorize you by breaking down at an inopportune time and place? Great photo!
Don’t forget the old semi that terrorized Dennis Weaver’s character in “Duel”. I remember seeing the commercial for “The Car” when it first came to theaters, and then I saw the film on TV years later. Classic ’70’s cheese.
I think anyone prone to road rage should have to watch “Duel”. That movie was also very frightening. I also remembering having a new respect for that generation of Plymouth Valiant after having watched.
FWIW, the truck used for most of the filming of ‘Duel’ was a 1956 Peterbilt 281. For some reason, I always thought it was an Autocar (maybe because they had a similar appearance). Plus, I just liked the name ‘Autocar’ for a semi-truck.
For realism, ‘Duel’ ranks right down there with the ‘Bullitt’ chase scene as Dennis Weaver’s Valiant, even with a six-cylinder (a V8 badge can be seen on the Valiant’s front fender in some scenes) would have easily evaded the tanker in real life.
It also begs the question as to how much ‘Duel’ affected Valiant sales. Surely, there were a few customers who thought it would be cool to have the same car Dennis Weaver drove. I know I’d love to have an early seventies, red, four-door copy.
Your Halloween candy story reminded me of a Halloween when I was a child in the early seventies. After what must have been a 2-hour “trick-or-treat” excursion, we get home and mom would not let me eat ANY of the candy! None of it! This was around the time that the old “razor blades in the apples” stories were popular.
I always wondered about the “razor blades in the apples” thing. How could you NOT be able to tell there had been razor blades put into an apple? There would have to be some kind of apple skin breakage in order to get the blade in there. When you picked up the apple, how could you NOT see the broken skin damaged by the razor blade insertion…??
This was also around the time that hospitals starting offering x-raying services for bags of treats.
Anyway, yes, “The Car” was a scary-as-heck movie for a kid. I still get creeped out by “Christine”, too.
Friends say my Ranchero has a passing resemblance to “the car” at night even if it is the wrong color.
Thumbs up for behind-the-grill aux light. Very clean. As long as the grill blockage is manageable my favored choice. I got 4 8″ KC round light behind the lower grill of my 2012 charger. 2 fog. 2 distance. Wired thru relays to lo/hi beams. Great lighting. Only noticeable in a 30 degree cone iin front of car. With the added benefit of making most people dawdling in the passing lane choose to move right. There was also a corollary disadvantage in that on secondary roads without passing lanes people tended to be very very law abiding when they were in front of me. That didn’t happen that much but I was Thinking about making a backwards-printed “Not a cop”sticker
Heh, in the interest of completeness, let us not forget Maximum Overdrive as well…
Nor the scariest IMHO, Christine.
How about a real life Maximum Overdrive/Silence of the Lambs mashup? An International LoneStar with a bull bar….
Dang. That is scary.
Detroit Diesel Inside !
Duel. Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Dennis Weaver.
Certain 2007-2013 Silverados with the work truck grill do look scary.
To me, a Vega with fangs and that growls is about as terrifying as tv’s Eddie Munster. It’s laughable, now, but when it crows up.
I saw The Car for the first time on tv as an adult. It was kind of cheesy but I think it could scare small children. I kept hoping for some kind of “near death” damage that would make the car REALLY crazy mad.
It seems like there was a similar movie in the late 50s, early 60s, but the name escapes me.
Howard, now I’m curious about which other movie from the 50’s / 60’s that could be. I may have to research that.
As for “The Car”, I’m baffled as to how that got only a PG rating. There really wasn’t that much gore, per se, but there was enough truly frightening, supernatural stuff going on. Without spoiling it for those who haven’t seen it, I’ll just say that the motion sequence that plays at the beginning of the ending credits made the young me want to go to my room, lock the door, crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.
The truck from 1977’s Sorcerer is pretty nightmarish.
Tries too hard.
They should’ve left the stock grille with empty “eye sockets” after moving the headlights lower, not higher (as is sometimes done when the stock location would exceed headlight-height requirements).
That actually is rather ghoulish, even if a little obvious.
Nevermind the car! There’s s creepy shadow cast TOWARD the source of the light!
This Caprice wears it’s age and lack of hubcaps in a get out of my way I’m changing lanes sort of way. Move or I’ll crumple you with my battering ram bumpers.
Totally agree, you completely understand where I was trying to go with this piece. (Of course that creepy shadow was yours truly.)
When the “new” Chrysler 300 came out and I saw one for the first time I was immediately reminded of “The Car”. I still think there is a resemblance because the roof on the 300 looks like it has a slight “chop” top. Kind of scary!
Yeah, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine a remake of ‘The Car’ using a black-primer, slammed-top 300 with limo-tint windows.
“The Car” was the meanest ,baddest Brougham ever! Don’t make fun of my half vinyl top or opera windows unless you want a beat down!
The only thing wrong with Christine is that the opening scene should have taken place a year later at Dodge Main instead of Lynch Road. A much scarier Exnermobile…..
For a malevolent looking car, I’d take the above 1959 Dodge Royal Lancer, 1961 Plymouth Fury, or 1959 Buick Invicta.
While ‘The Car’ is pretty cheesy, even better for laughs is watching the hapless construction crew apparently unable to evade the maniacal (but slow-moving) Caterpillar D9 in the 1974 made-for-tv ‘Killdozer!’.
Thee is just something about “The Car” that is evil and menacing. Would a Vega or a Volvo work in the title role? I doubt it. If there is any movie car that I could own-in running condition , this is it.
I will confess that I have never seen The Car. I must seek it out sometime. I watched the trailer and tried to figure out what the evil machine was, but I could not ID it. Anyone?
Yes, the Caprice looks a bit sinister. In that setting, it just has a “just walk away” look.
It’s a 1971 Lincoln Mark III, heavily customized by George Barris.
According to Wiki, The Car was a customized Continental…..a Mark IV. For the longest time I tought it was one of the 2nd generation Monte Carlos, that had been “gifted” with a Rolls-Royce grille treatment.
The movie similar to The Car that I’m thinking of was made in black and white, so much scarier looking.
BTW, in my opinion there isn’t a car that looks sinister if it’s painted white or a pastel color. The car here looks almost sinister because of the lighting.
A note of trivia: sinster has roots in Latin (the language) as meaning left. Left handed people were once considered to be evil.
Howard, The car is a 71 Continental Mark III, not a Mark IV. IMCDB has identified it as such over on their website.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_3779-Lincoln-Continental-Mark-III-1971.html
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
By the way, Henry’s buddy Otis drove this 1974 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Custom Coupe. (source IMCDB)
I thought I was the only one who’s seen Henry. Definitely an underrated horror film, but one I don’t want to watch again.
In its genre it was a landmark and masterpiece (just like the -also low budget- 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Henry and crazy Otis, the personification of evil. And poor Becky…
Henry is a classic. Unfortunately, if falls solidly into the creepy, disturbing category (rumor is it didn’t get wide release due to MPA wanting to give it an X rating for excessive violence). It wasn’t overly violent but a bit too realistic, almost documentary like. Definitely not one for many to rewatch, particularly for those who prefer the more ‘feel good’ type movies. Disney, it ain’t.
Yep, too hard to rewatch. The producers sold the movie into the financiers as a slasher film, then changed their mind (IIRC) and decided to play things straight. Too straight for me now. The older I get, the more squeamish I become.
“Otis, plug it in”
Ooohhh I want that car! Thats my kinda ride. And I’m also left handed.
And this is not a movie truck. It’s driven by an owner-operator nearby. And I like it, very much. (Photo courtesy of Hendrik Veldhuizen Fotografie)
I saw The Car when it was the WhateverDay Night Move on NBC some years later. I remember it being simultaneously startlingly terrifying and laughably absurd.
+2 – Jim, it is both of those things.
Yeah me too. I think I saw it in the library of all places, they used to show movies on Saturday mornings when I was a kid.
And they ruined a perfectly good Matador cop car too!
The final scene of “White Line Fever” with Jan-Michael Vincent driving that Ford cabover is priceless even if that movie isn’t in the same category as Duel, the Car, Maximum Overdrive, Christine.
one of my favourites is “Black Cadillac” starring randy quaid.
group of kids end up in a mountain bar and are chased back down the mountain in their saab (yup..80’s saab sedan) by a 58 caddy limo. at night of couse.
don’t remember where I first saw it but I did pick up a dvd copy of it.
hmm….its Halloween night….might be a good time to refresh myself with it.
Great angles Joseph.
Entropy and the Impala I’ll reluctantly accept. “The Car” has it’s place too. What doesn’t, however, is the dopey widespread adoption in suburban Melbourne of the ritual of Halloween.
Why yes, I’m the guy who discovered the lower LH side of the car was covered in egg this morning after going to a movie last night (Hawthorn Lido). Not a targeted attack, just the byproduct of well resourced middle class teens acting without any responsibility and free from consequences in a public place. After having their private enjoyment the wider community can complete the clean up of the area.
OK, rant over. Car cleaned now.
I enjoyed “Black Cadillac” too. Nothing compares to a 58 Fleetwood 75 on icy roads! No experience myself, but I wouldn’t have guessed that.
Does Australia “celebrate” Guy Falke’s day? I saw it referenced in the BBC series Mulberry.
As for your rant: when I was just out of high school I had a job at a drugstore in a section of town near the University of Pittsburgh. Halloween 1969 kids stopped at the traffic light on the corner our drugstore and before the light turned green pelted the windows on the front of the store in eggs. I was tasked with cleaning eggs off the windows, sidewalk, and the floor just inside the door.
Australia had a variation observed with little understanding of the gunpowder plot. It was all about bonfires and explosions! So much so that a generation ago pyrotechnics were banned from private hands – even those missing fingers from previous adventures. The ACT continued selling fireworks for a while, not sure if that’s still the case.
Commercially and culturally sanctioned vandalism…auggh. We really have no excuse, the tradition did not survive long enough in Great Britain to be transported down under – it’s taken Hollywood to do that.
Like Jim said. We had Guy Fawkes’ day when I was a kid, though I felt at the time it was a bit irrelevant – celebrating What? Where?? How many hundred years ago??? But it was fun while it lasted. I remember doing some…er, unethical…things with fireworks, but I dread to think what kids would do today.
As for Halloween, the stores have had a real advertising blitz on the past five years or so, but it’s still widely seen as not part of our culture. As a kid, I only ever heard about it from (American) comic books.
As a car crazy kid growing up in Australia in the 60s, with the help of an over active imagination. I remember wondering if there was a bit more to cars than just being mere machines.
Particularly old American cars with their rumbling engines and savage chrome trim.
If I’d seen “The Car” movie back then it would have confirmed what i suspected.
Now of course their the cars of my dreams.
i have to say though, that the last scene in that movie can still bring a chill
One other “evil”car I’ll toss in is “Horace” from the 1997 made-for-tv movie “The Love Bug (not the original Love Bug theatrical film). The final scene where Horace is destroyed is pretty spooky in its own right.
Though the movie has flaws, it’s worth mentioning the ’72 Caddy Eldorado from “Highwaymen”. I’d also argue that the Caprice looks evil simply because of its size, “expression,” and round headlights, which are more animalistic than the currently popular extraterrestrial insectoid style.
Not at all a scary movie, but the the bitter antagonist (Dennis Hopper) in King of The Mountain drove a battered and scarred 67 Corvette in the climatic race. I don’t think a Vette of this era ever looked so menacing
Lotsa good memories here ! .
You’d think the discount video outlets would have piles of these cheesy old films on DVD for $3 each on Halloween .
-Nate
No offence intended, but to an Italian car enthusiast most ’70s and ’80s american cars look sinister or at list a touch too aggressive, particularliy in a black coat, maybe because of those large chrome grills.
Euro cars, on the contrary, tended to convey an overall idea of sporty driving pleasure, sheer speed, or reassuring family comfort, or plain chicky fun.
I see this Caprice as something else menacing : a sleeper.
Did anyone else notice the dual exhaust and Wisconsin license plates? I picture the owner, a mid thirties age male with dark Levis and the cuffs pegged, a crew cut , and Ray-Ban Wayfarers. He has a half empty pack of Lucky Strikes in his inner jacket pocket.
He climbs into the heavy Chevy and the door creaks with the age appropriate sag.
The Driver pumps the throttle twice before he flips a few toggle switches on the dashboard, one for the high pressure electric fuel pump, one for the MSD ignition, and one for the dual electric fans before depressing the small, round starter button.
The smallblock 400 barks to life with a staccato rap from the headers through straight pipes as he lowers his head to light up another Lucky.
THe built Turbo Hydramatic 400 clunks heavily as he shifts the manual valve body into Low, and and the headlights flash a penetrating knife into the dark, damp Chicago night as the Driver begins his search for prey. . . .
I had a friend when I was in college who drove what I suppose was a 1975 Caprice convertible. It had rectangular lights, but was otherwise similar to this car and I assume there was no 1976 Caprice convertible due to the notoriety of the 1976 Eldorado as being the last American convertible until the next one. His had a 400 small block and hand controls, since he was a paraplegic. He handed it over to a drag racing team who tuned it to the point where it could run a high fifteen instead of a high nineteen second quarter mile. Good times. I hope he is still out there showing people how to make the best of the life you have.