Guest Author - Andy Boxall

From American Graffiti to Vanishing Point and Smokey and the Bandit to The Cannonball Run, film has had a long running love affair with the car. In the world of horror, the car has not been featured as strongly as the usual suspects (zombies and vampires for example) but there are a few choice movies out there that will satisfy those horror fans with a car fetish too.

First, forget films like The Car, The Ambulance and anything with ‘Vampire Motorcycle’ in the title. As much fun as these films are, they do not allow the car to become the star, which is what we are aiming for here. The same goes for the woeful Maximum Overdrive, an adaptation from a Stephen King story. No, if you want some cars with your horror, take a look at the following films.

In 1983, John Carpenter gave us Christine, another movie from a Stephen King story. Stereotypical nerdy school boy Arnie buys a dodgy old 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine and begins to smoother it with love. As he restores the car, his attitude changes and the evil within Christine gradually takes him over. Not one of Carpenter’s best, but still worth a look. The Fury is cool though and the movie opens with a great scene.

Still in the 80s, next we have a much harder film to track down than Christine. Charlie Sheen stars in The Wraith, a horror/sci-fi/revenge flick with the car as the star. The plot is yawn-inducing in it’s un-originality – kid is killed by gang, mysterious black clad guy turns up in a super fast car and starts killing off the gang members – but the car, acting and locations are all better than average. The car was actually a Dodge prototype called the M4S and looks like a little like a Jaguar XJ220. Some good race scenes litter the movie and eagle-eyed car spotters will tick off a few other cars too, including a racy ’77 Pontiac Trans Am complete with skyscraper high blower.

Finally, we have the ultimate horror/car interface. Director Don Coscarelli (Bubba Ho-Tep) released Phantasm in 1979, a low budget movie about a creepy Tall Man who operates a mortuary where the bodies of the dead disappear. Surreal and spooky and filled with iconic imagery, Phantasm has a huge cult following and has so far spawned 3 sequels. The main character owns a stunning ’71 Hemi Cuda with gleaming black paintwork and classic American Racing wheels. The car was actually owned by Coscarelli and then by Art Director Dave Brown. Today, its whereabouts are unclear but is apparantly often spotted and reported to Coscarelli!

What makes Phantasm stand out is the way the car is portrayed. It is a key player in several scenes, various cast members drive it, yet it is not the protagonist like in Christine. It’s happy to be a supporting member of the cast. It even played an important role behind the scenes as actor Mike Baldwin learnt to drive in it! If you have never seen Phantasm then even without liking cars it is a great example of 70s horror, but if you like American Muscle as well as a good bit of horror, then you cannot go wrong with Phantasm.