1976 Directed by Charles Band
Jealous invalid husband tries to kill sexy blond wife, who uses occult powers and devices to try to kill him.
Draculas Todesrennen, Akaza, the God of Vengeance, Death Ride
The young trophy wife of wheelchair bound José Ferrer bypasses vinyl copies of The Tubes' debut album and "Hotter Than Hell" by KISS at a local swap-meet, in order to pick up a bizarre talisman instead (from Reggie Nalder, no less)...and justifiably spends the rest of the film cursed and possessed as a result.
Released in January of '77, and beating that same year's "The Car" to the big screen, this 'possessed automobile' film entry isn't as good, but it's nearly as fun. It's also quite the mess...essentially feeling like two different films in one: one taking it's influence from the likes of Spielberg's popular TV movie "Duel", the other cashing in on that era's popularity in demonic possession-themed films.…
If you're into slow motion car wrecks with hollowed out vehicles from a junkyard (demolition derbies??), then Crash! is for you. If you like watching the same explosion happen at the same gas station--twice, maybe even three times, then Crash! is for you. If you are interested in baby Charles Band following around blondes in between lame, repetitive crashes/explosions, then Crash! is for you.
I'm not interested in any of those things and I've already decide a long time ago that Charles Band is not for me, yet here I am, logging another one of Cheatum Brand's movies.
It's not even hate-watching at this point, it's gone further than that, maybe it's a desperate cry for help, maybe it's severe depression, whatever it is, it's not working out for me. Charles Band and his merchandise are not for me. This isn't for me. When will it stop and why am I not doing anything to prevent it from happening again?
Day 7. Exclamation in the title.
Like 2 films running through eachother. I was a little slow in seeing the connection between the driverless killer car and the girls story. It delivered great CRASH 💥 SMASH. Loads of cars were smashed in this.
I look at my Jason Voorhees keyring, cut my finger and say Casa Acaza (or something along those lines).
Several years before he made a whole bunch of films starring puppets, Charles Band directed this strange mix of a horror thriller and car crash heavy action movie named Crash! A resentful wheelchair bound man blames his wife, who looks old enough to be his daughter, for his predicament and after having enough of her sends his dog out to murder her while she's driving. She crashes and gets severely injured, but while in recovery from her injuries and amnesia she bleeds on the fetish/voodoo doll she recently purchased which possesses her and sends her Camaro convertible on a path of destruction back to her...I think.
It's kinda poorly slapped together at times, but this is one pretty entertaining flick…
This might be the most enjoyment I've yet been able to drain from an objectively 3-star-level film. We have here something about a jilted wife, a cursed Hittite talisman, a kooky archvillain with a head full of harebrained schemes, red demon eyes, a driverless car weaving a trail of destruction, liberal use of a fish eye lens and a plot-significant dog attack (all of the things I love). From what I've seen, Band's earlier stuff must have been heavier on technique, since there's a lot more atmosphere, action fast-cutting and foreboding long and panning shots than I expected. It's also prime 70s' aesthetics: swank jazz fusion and spacey synths, classic cars on the road, striped shirts and flat-ironed hair, sun-drenched…
It's not surprising to me (and I doubt it is to you either) that I loved this movie which seems to get some hate based on filmmaking technique alone. I've said it about other movies and I'll say it again, if you hate this movie because of editing and stuff than you're missing the entire point of watching a movie like this.
This is pure exploitation. For most of the movie it seems like two separate movies are happening at once. One with a posessed car wreaking havoc on the highway and one with a man trying to kill his wife. The car plot gives us a reason to watch a ton of amazing car crashes while the marital murder…
Charles Band’s Duel, I guess, but with half a dozen more exploding vehicles. 💥 Definitely does not earn its self-awarded exclamation point.
Tally:
34 crashed cars/trucks/vans (33 of those shown twice)
8 explosions (6 of those shown twice)
1 crashed motorcycle (shown twice)
1 crashed boat (shown twice)
1 crashed semi trailer (shown twice)
2 wheelchairs gone wild
1 terrible parking job
1 wheelchair gently nudged off a cliff by a car
While there is no doubt that the film delivers on it's title (more of which later) you probably aren't expecting this to be what amounts to a possessed killer car movie. Because that's what it is, preceding The Car by just a few months, although this isn't even close in terms of quality.
The story sees José Ferrer trying to knock off his much younger wife Sue Lyon, believing her to be unfaithful. Instead she's left in a coma after an accident and with a missing memory, but still with a little occult idol she picked up from Reggie Nalder at a swap meet which enables her to call her car back to her to enact revenge on her husband.…
Almost high art compared to what we think of as Chuckie Band films now. It's goofy and a mess of storytelling, but it's audacious enough to be pretty fun. A husband and wife are trying to kill each other, basically. One uses a Doberman and one uses a possessed car, and at times you can't make out which one's using which. But it'll be goldamned if you don't admire every fucking nanosecond of the vehicular mayhem, some of which you can tell they barely had a handle on when filming, such as almost taking out a house and its family of onlookers.
You know, it takes a real bankruptcy of imagination to make a "car possessed by an angry deity" movie as exciting as watching fingernails grow. Charles Band, a man who has made a career out of halfheartedly cranking out cheapie product, takes a concept ripe for wild, gonzo fun and transforms it into a dry, sleepy chore. Word is the investors gave Band $100,000 and told him to fill the movie with as many car chases and crashes as possible. Cutting the bills into snowflake designs would have been a better use of the cash.
Different enough…A blend of car crash action film and black magic revenge. Very little in the way of plot but an entertaining enough diversion and an effectively pure exploitation concept.
Tally:
34 crashed cars/trucks/vans (33 of those shown twice)
8 explosions (6 of those shown twice)
1 crashed motorcycle (shown twice)
1 crashed boat (shown twice)
1 crashed semi trailer (shown twice)
2 wheelchairs gone wild
1 terrible parking job
1 wheelchair gently nudged off a cliff by a car
I was about to give Charles Band a retro compliment on big budgeted Crash, his groovy Christine killer car movie, a car powered by something the Brady's would find in Hawaii, but he recycled the footage! You can't advertise 50 cars being destroyed when it's a Golden Girls recap episode. Crash put's Christine's kills to shame, it adds a possessed woman in peril and a cranky old man with a wheelchair and a shotgun. Great grindhouse flick! 3 donuts out of 5.
Impressive car crash stunts hung on an extremely bizarre story that gets hampered by some very dull performances. Honestly this might be worth revisiting though for those stunt crashes. And the strangeness of the story serves to undo some of the lame acting.
Strange, unbelievable mixture of occult and car chase. Jealous invalid husband Ferrer tries to kill wife Lyon, who uses demonic device to cause mayhem on her own. An amusing and hypnotic watch despite so much of it not making much sense at all.
Charles Band’s Duel, I guess, but with half a dozen more exploding vehicles. 💥 Definitely does not earn its self-awarded exclamation point.
Lots of explosions and car crashes and magic. I’m not even sure the story makes sense.
Crash! has a such a great silly setup and execution, it feels more like a parody joke movie that would appear in a 30 Rock scene or a fake trailer during Rodriguez's/Tarantino's Grindhouse movie. This film exemplifies the type of weird cinema you'd catch on Movies 'til Dawn during a bout of insomnia.
Sue "Lolita" Lyons possesses (in more ways than one) a haunted Camaro that wreaks havoc on the SoCal backroads. It doesn't help matters that the police have received driver's training from the Hazzard County Sheriff's Dept. and drive those '70s cars that explode immediately on impact. I'll cut them some slack, for these police have been defunded to the point where they can only afford cardboard lights on their cruisers. Like typical films of this genre and time period, the budget is pitiful, but the stunt driving and pyrotechnics for their buck is way impressive.
So as a huge fan of evil car movies I thought I'd try to find and watch as many as possible and identify the Evil Car Canon if you will.
Rules:
1. There must be a specific vehicle identified with the evil.
2. While the vehicle would preferably have no driver, a driver is allowed as long as they remain as anonymous as possible throughout the film.
(example: Duel and Joy Ride are evil car movies, The Hitcher and Death Proof are not)
3. If the evil vehicles are being manipulated by an outside, independent force that takes up more screen time than the cars, the film doesn't count as an "evil car movie" as the evil cars are incidental.…
Alla mente viene il decisamente superiore The Car, ma Band non plagia, anzi esce leggermente prima. Di buono c’è una grossa quantità di incidenti e auto distrutte, così come funziona l’idea di utilizzare una decappottabile enfatizzando il fatto che non ci sia nessuno alla guida. Intorno però scricchiola con una trama moscia che infila possessioni a caso e prova a reggersi sull’esperienza di José Ferrer (con cameo di John Carradine).
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