Trailer
Plot summary
Two teenagers riding their bicycles across the desert toward a camping trip are struck by a matte black car. The same car runs down a hitchhiker, and Amos Clemens watches it happen. Deputies treat the crashes as hit-and-run cases and set up road blocks, but the car carries no plates and an eyewitness to the sheriff's death says no one was at the wheel. The car swerves past Amos and runs down Sheriff Everett Peck, leaving Chief Deputy Wade Parent in charge. Wade asks Lauren, the schoolteacher he is seeing, to cancel the marching band rehearsals. Lauren and her friend Margie Johnson ask Wade's deputy Luke Johnson to let the band practice anyway, and he agrees. The car enters town and goes for the showground.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Car (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to Elliot Silverstein, the distinctive sound the horn of the car makes spells out the letter X in Morse code, as a meaning of the elimination of its victims.
- Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey is acknowledged as an uncredited technical advisor on the film, and its opening credits begin with a quote attributed to him, an invocation of the great brothers of the night who dwell in the devil's lair.
- Four cars were built for the film in six weeks. Three were used as stunt mules and were destroyed during production, while the fourth, used for close-ups, is now in a private collection.
- To give the car a sinister look as director Elliot Silverstein requested, George Barris made its roof four inches lower than usual and altered the side fenders. The windows were laminated in two different shades, smoked on the inside and amber on the outside, so one could see out of it but not into it.
- The theme was intentionally made to resemble the fifth part of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique rather than the Dies Irae that inspired it, as that was found to have a more sinister tone. A derivative of the music was later used in the 1991 film Sleeping with the Enemy.
