The Car
(1977/Universal DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: D Extras: D Film: B-
Generally
speaking, when you start a movie, you know just about what you're going to get
ahead of time, and usually when you're wrong, it's a disappointment. But every once in a long while you find
something that is better than you expected it to be. This was the case with The Car. A horror flick from
the seventies in which an ominous black car, which is really the embodiment of
pure evil, mows people down for no apparent reason sounds like a schlocky piece
of crap; a fun schlocky piece of crap maybe, but still crap. But apparently even a movie called The Car can turn out well. Really what
this film is, is Jaws in the desert. An
unstoppable force of nature, or in this case evil, picks off the citizens of a
small isolated community one by one and is hunted doggedly by the head of the
local police.
Another
thing this disc has going for it is that, rather inexplicably, this is one of
the best cases of digital remastering I have yet seen. In terms of picture quality, this disc is
better than the Collector’s Edition DVD of Jaws
that is sitting on my shelf. The picture
is sharp, the colors are vibrant; this disc probably looks better than the film
print did on the big screen in 1977, and it’s shown in the extra-wide
anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen format. Unfortunately,
the sound quality is not nearly so good. It is audibly soft, especially on the
dialogue, despite the fact that it is in Dolby Digital 2.0, though the Dolby
5.1 mix on the out of print Anchor Bay version was nice. And then there’s the extras, or rather there
isn’t. The only extra feature on the
disc is the original theatrical trailer. A shame, since Universal went to all the
trouble to remaster the film, and its cult status means that people would
certainly watch the extras if they were there.
This
movie is what you might call a diamond in the rough. It fits squarely within the framework of B
horror, but somehow rises above its peers. I would even put The Car just one step below Jaws
in terms of overall cinematic value. The
writing isn’t as good, the directing isn’t as good, and the climactic ending
backslides into the category of ridiculous and over-the-top, but for the B
horror fan this is still a breath of fresh air. And for anyone else, I think you’ll come out
of it surprised.
- Matthew Carrick
