Having recently watched The Car myself for the first time, I was pretty gutted that i'd picked it up about a week before Arrow Video, the independent U.K cult dvd label, announced their blu-ray release. Luckily resident U.S critic Shawn Francis managed to snag a review copy, here are his thoughts on this rather cool film. Check out Shawn's review after the jump...
Written By Shawn Francis
This
is one of many films that became a staple of my youth, a real “memory
movie,” as I like to call them. I was eight years old when it hit
theaters and either nine or ten when it hit television, depending on
when exactly that was.
Sometimes
the most “memorable horror” is the kind that happens out of the
blue with no seeming explanation. The
Car is one of those
movies. After Anton La Vey’s quotation appears in the beginning,
“Oh great brothers of
the night, who rideth out upon the hot winds of hell, who dwelleth in
the Devil's lair; move and appear!”—the
car does exactly that! It appears out there in the landscape. You can
see it. And why has it appeared? Why does it start killing? And why
were those particular characters chosen to die? Well, barring one
death, which can easily be reasoned out to an extent, none of these
questions are ever answered in the movie’s running time. This is
one of the traits that make this flick so powerful.
The
other is that goddamn car . . . it’s unique, it has no handles on
the doors, it’s all black and has a roof that’s prominently lower
than anything you might normally see on cars in the earthly plane.
What it can do also managed to make a fearful impression on my young
mind. Sure it’s main modus operandi is running anyone down it comes
upon, and in one case, grinding some poor hitchhiker to death under
it’s wheels, but at one point we learn there’s no driver, it can
drive through a house, and, perhaps, just perhaps, Satan
himself holds the pink slip to this murderous shaggin’ wagon as you
might be able to discern in the fiery aftermath of the car’s
explosive demise.
James
Brolin (High Risk, The Amityville Horror) plays a small
mid-western cop named, Wade Parent, who has two girls, one of which
is Kim Richards (Assault On Precinct 13), and a girlfriend in
the form of Kathleen Lloyd. Ronny Cox (The Beast Within, Robocop)
plays, Luke, a buddy of his who’s also a cop and R.G. Armstrong
(The Beast Within, Lone Wolf McQuade) is the local
wife-beating douchebag they occasionally have the pleasure of
arresting on what appears to be a regular basis.
All
this real life minutia, joy and day-to-day soul-testing is upended
when this “car” just appears and starts killing people, leaving
Wade and his cop buddies to figure out why this is happening, who
will be next and how the hell do they stop it? Stopping it is about
all they ever figure out. As I mentioned before, ambiguity works for
this movie big time.
It
looks like Arrow Video in the U.K. beat Universal in getting this out
on blu-ray. Their region B 1080p high definition 2.35:1 remastered
transfer makes it look like the movie was made yesterday.
Colors/detail are gorgeous and extraordinary, much better looking
than Anchor Bay’s 1999 and Universal’s 2008 releases.
Audio
is in English stereo 2.0 PCM and the only subtitles you get are
English.
Arrow
has graced their release with the kind of extras that will make you
appreciate the movie even more. First up is a commentary with the
Elliot Silverstein, the director and moderated by Callum Waddell. Not
the best commentary I’ve ever heard. Waddell tries hard to get
Silverstein to talk at depth about the movie, but it’s like pulling
teeth. Memory may be part of it, for he states at one point that he
doesn’t remember filming a lot of the scenes, plus I get the
impression this movie was just another job for him. He also seems
disappointed that it wasn’t done more as a night time horror flick,
as opposed to what the end result was which is the car being seen
under the bright light of day. He never liked that at all.
Next
up is Making A Mechanical Monster (27:32). Here FX artist,
Will “Bill FX” Aldridge talks about his first serious gig in the
movie business, which just so happened to be this movie. Next up is
Hitchhike To Hell (10:16), an interview with actor, John
Rubinstein, who played the doomed, French horn playing hitchhiker. He
states his best memory was getting to know actor, R.G. Armstrong. You
also get the movie’s trailer and the same trailer with a commentary
by director, John Landis, who clearly has a love/hate relationship
with this flick. More than once he states that it’s a dumb movie,
but one he enjoyed.
Finally
there’s an Easter Egg located on the special features menu.
Keep moving your rectangle through the features until it ends up next
to the car, hit play and you get a 2-minute interview with Elliot
Silverstein, who talks about his initial ambivalence towards
directing the movie.
According
to Arrow’s press release you also get a “collector’s booklet
featuring new writing on the film by Cullen Gallagher as well as a
brand new interview with co-writer Michael Butler, conducted by
Callum Waddell, illustrated with original archive stills and
artwork.”
Unsure
when Universal will release a stateside blu-ray, until then, if
you’re a hardcore fan of this movie, and can afford to shop
overseas, get it and add it to your collection ASAP.
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