Hitch a Ride Straight to Hell
Vehicles serve many purposes – get you from point A to point B, help spies look really cool and are really fun to watch go around circles incredibly fast (especially when they crash). One thing they don’t do nearly enough is inspire terror. Just think how much more interesting Driving Miss Daisy would have been if the car was possessed by an ancient evil. Or is Ashton Kutcher actually found his car in Dude, Where’s My Car?… and then it crushed him beneath tons of unfeeling metal and rubber.
Here, then, are a few films that got things right and turned common vehicles into something to be feared. Just like any top horror film should.
5-4) Duel & Joyride – Proving that it’s never wise to make a truck driver angry – both movies feature the common Peterbilt in menacing ways. I’m sure truck drivers everywhere were overjoyed at their portrayed. In Duel all it takes is for a cars to pass a slow-moving 281 Tanker for the chase to begin. Whose driving? Who cares – when a beast of truck is bearing down on your dinky Plymouth Valiant you took might crap your pants in terror. Steven Spielberg cut his teeth with this and would go back to the same story – replacing a truck with a shark and Jaws would be born.
Joyride is a different story when a couple of college-age morons decide to prank a few truck drivers. Hint: don’t prank a guy nicknamed “Rusty Nail” (could it sound more like a serial killer?). People like that are just asking for an ass-kicking, and once again, an impressive 359 Peterbilt is the truck of choice for chasing the punks. Moral of both stories: leave truck drivers alone.
3) Jeepers Creepers – While it may be the creature who steals the show, the rusted 1941 Chevy COE he drives is just as creepy as the supernatural serial killer. Something that looks like it came out of Satan’s junkyard, and with a horn-blast that may qualify for best “jump-out-of-your-seat” moment, this is one vehicle you don’t want to run into if you happen to be driving down the Florida countryside. Also, you may want to not investigate strange churches where bodies are being dumped, either, but that’s just me.
2) Deathproof – Leave it to a guy named Stuntman Mike to come up with a perfect vehicle that let’s you get away with murder. He turns his 1971 Chevy Nova into something that gives the driver near perfect immunity (not so much for the passenger) by adding a roll cage and making it a moving murder machine. In one of my favorite death scenes in any pretty much any film, he easily dispatches four victims, walks away with minor injuries and escapes the law (as the women were drugged up whilst he was sober as a judge). As a homage to exploitation films, it was an inspiring story. Sure, he eventually got what was coming to him, but for that one moment, he was death incarnate. I bet his brother is a truck driver.
1) Christine – There is nothing quite like a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury – fixing it up, restoring it to glory, possessing the urge to murder those around you… Stephen King isn’t called the “Master of Horror” for nothing. Only he could make the idea of a sentient vehicle viable – the book gets into a little more meat of the story, but the film adaptation leaves more to the imagination. Why is this particular vehicle evil? Who knows! It just decides on the assembly line to do a little killing, must like it, so becomes just a being of pure evil. After languishing, perpetual loser Arnie Cunningham decides he likes it, and it changes him. Just like the car, Arnie himself becomes possessed – until the car decides it wants to go after his girl. In the end, Arnie manages to hold on to him humanity and Christine goes to the great junkyard in the sky… but, because evil never truly dies, the end leaves room for the car to continue its mean streak.
I know I left a few out The Car is often sited (but I’ve yet to see that yet) and Maximum Overdrive has a great Green Goblin semi (thought he film is too cheesy – it’s a good thing King stayed with writing and decided against directing). The Wraith has a killer Dodge PPG M4S (but loses points for essentially being an extended Chrysler commercial featuring a young Charlie Sheen). There are a few other examples out there, but I figure I’ve covered my bases.
Chris Kavan is the Community Manager for FilmCrave.com and he believes road rage is never the answer (especially with truck drivers).
