Killer Car Movies: “The Car: Road to Revenge” (2019)
This Halloween, the usual scary movie monsters are taking a back seat to a cavalcade of creepy cars. Throughout October, The News Wheel has celebrated the best of killer-car cinema. From the scary and eerie to the silly and mind-boggling, we’ve highlighted a wide variety of horror films in which vehicles strike back against their drivers. As the Halloween season wraps up, it’s time to take a look at one more movie. Interestingly, our last killer car flick is a sequel to one we’ve already discussed. Prepare yourselves to enter the baffling world of The Car: Road to Revenge.
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The story of “The Car: Road to Revenge”
Remember The Car from 1977? Well, guess what: more than 40 years after its release, it now has a sequel. How’s that for unexpected?
The original The Car was a fun and eerie little 70s flick about a driverless vehicle offing people like a slasher villain. The film never definitively solves the mystery of what’s powering the car but hints at it being demonic, possibly satanic. The film ends with the destruction of the titular vehicle, and victory for the human heroes. It seemed pretty definitive. But as any horror fan knows, no movie monster stays dead for long.
A whopping four decades later, in 2019, a sequel suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Despite being called a “sequel” by the production team, The Car: Road to Revenge is about as far removed from the original as possible. So far removed, in fact, that it doesn’t even feel like it takes place on the same plane of existence. The film tells the bizarre tale of unrest in a stylized cyberpunk city of the future. A corrupt DA is murdered, and his body is tossed out a window where it crashes into his new car. Soon after, the car returns and begins — you guessed it — killing people. The car is purported to contain the soul of the murdered villain, now fused with his snazzy ride. But is that really true, or is something less supernatural going on…
Why it’s not scary
Yeah, you read that right. Despite having some brutal moments and a few tense scenes, the car on the road to revenge in The Car: Road to Revenge is simply not scary. Intimidating in an over-the-top action movie kind of way, perhaps, but not frightening in the least. Much of that can be blamed on this film’s agenda; it’s not a horror film, but a cyberpunk action/adventure. It’s completely out of tune with the original, particularly when it comes to the big reveal regarding the killer vehicle of the title. The car itself — and yes, this is a major spoiler — turns out to not be supernatural at all, but rather an AI-driven killing machine.
Unnecessary but fun
All of this begs a very reasonable and simple question: why? Why make a sequel to a cult classic horror movie 42 years later, and then make it so different from the original? Were they hoping to attract some kind of fan base for the 1977 film and cash in on the name? Would it really have been such a big deal to just make the film its own thing, rather than tethering it to a movie with little notoriety outside of a cult following?
While the circumstances behind its production are baffling, the film is still watchable. It’s a bit of a mess, but it’s never boring. Despite being incongruous with the film it’s supposedly following up on, the cyberpunk aesthetic is eye-catching and fun. The action is quick, the directing is competent, and it even features a few homages to the original film. If any of this sounds like a good time, give The Car: Road to Revenge a try. As of this writing, it’s streaming on Netflix.
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This concludes The News Wheel’s month-long celebration of killer car movies. However, before you go, I wanted to leave you with this final word. We hope the memories of killer bulldozers, haunted hearses, and terrifying trucks won’t give you bad dreams, so here’s a word of reassurance before you click away.
When you get home tonight, and the lights have been turned out, and you are afraid to look in the garage — dreading that you might see a fearsome grille and crushing tires appear behind the rising door… why, just pull yourself together and remember that, after all… THERE ARE SUCH THINGS!
Happy Halloween! (And if you got the above reference, you’re my kind of horror fan.)
The News Wheel is a digital auto magazine providing readers with a fresh perspective on the latest car news. We’re located in the heart of America (Dayton, Ohio) and our goal is to deliver an entertaining and informative perspective on what’s trending in the automotive world. See more articles from The News Wheel.