Crash! (1976)

 "An Occult Object Takes Possession of a Driverless Car and Causes One Spectacular Crash After Another Until Fifty Cars Are Pounded Into a Mass of Twisted Metal"         

With a pitch line like that how could you go wrong?

 

 

Long before there was Trancers, Puppet Master, Gingerdead Man, or Evil Bong there was 1976's Crash! from Charles Band.  After Steven Speilberg's 1971 Duel and before 1977's The Car we got Band's Crash!.  In the same vein as the other two I mentioned, Crash! (goddamn exclamation point pisses me off) is about a car that is possessed by an evil entity and goes on a killing spree.  Starring is Jose Ferrer (Lawrence of Arabia and Dune) and Sue Lyon (Lolita and The Night of the Iguana) as a married couple who are trying to kill each other.  John Carradine also has a cameo as Dr. Edwards.  

 

Kim Denne (Lyon) stops off at a swap meet and buys her husband Marc (Ferrer) an interesting African trinket from Reggie Nalder (Salem's Lot and Mark of the Devil) of all people for Christ's sake.  When Marc sends his pet doberman after Kim in an attempt to kill her (he's pissed that she caused an accident which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life) she gets into a car accident and almost dies.  While in the hospital recovering from her wounds she has no memory of her life before the crash but what she does have is the African trinket.  

 

Somehow the trinket possesses her car and it tries to go after her husband but before it can do that it causes a crap ton of other damage on the highway.  Car crash (er Crash!) after car crash happens and this is still palatable if for no other reason then for the car wrecks.  If the wrecks that are scattered about in the movie aren't enough good old Charlie Band gives us a montage of all the wrecks right before the films big ending.  Perhaps one of the best parts of the film is a collision of a different type and that's when the doberman faces off with a wheelchair.  Some good devilish fun to be had here but boy did it make me want to see Christine again.  Duel I gave 4 stars, The Car (which came out a few months after Crash!) I gave 3 stars.  This, the least entertaining of the three so I will give it two and a half black Chevy Camaros out of 5.  And that half of a Camaro, while useless, is heavy as fark!