Very well executed

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It's a surprise to find this movie was filmed in Los Angeles because L.A. looks quite unfamiliar here. But this movie is full of surprises, not the least of which is finding that the story is actually an earlier version of "The Car" (1977). I suppose José Ferrer will go down in history as an actor who played characters with gross physical deformities. In this film, he is confined to a wheelchair. But he still looks pretty chipper and his voice is as beautifully resonant as ever. John Ericson has borne the years well too, but Sue Lyon is definitely looking older. She delivers a very convincing performance, however, and enjoys some great make-up effects. Director Charles Band knows how to fill his wide anamorphic screen effectively. True, it's a "B" film and has some of the characteristics of the genre including jump cuts and lots of actuality film-work, but it also displays some spectacular action sequences (which are reprized at the climax). All in all, it's an effective movie, despite its far-fetched and incredible story. Even on its own level, the story really doesn't work, but there are a few good shocks and plenty of spills. Fortunately, the performances seem both natural and convincing. Photography, sets and other credits are effective.

Crash! from independent film director Charles Band is an energetic but almost totally nonsensical entry in the possessed vehicle stakes. It even throws some wild and woolly occult magic into its jumbled brew, just to tangle its disparate elements a little further. One thing it does have going for it is the presence of horror veterans José Ferrer, John Carradine and Reggie Nalder, although only Ferrer gets any meaningful screen time. Sue Lyon is here too, though seeing her in a cheapjack genre film like this seems dispiriting after the early promise she showed in Lolita and Night Of The Iguana.Pretty young lady Kim Denne (Lyon) buys a curious trinket from a flea market. Later it becomes evident the trinket is a Hittite charm which can give its owner strange powers. Kim is married to the much older Marc (Ferrer), a bitter and twisted wheelchair-bound professor who holds his young wife responsible for his condition. Theirs is a totally broken relationship, and it's no surprise when Marc sets his ferocious Doberman upon Kim while she is driving, hoping to kill her and make it look like an accident. Kim survives this attempt on her life but comes out of it a disfigured amnesiac. While the police and doctors try to ascertain who she is and what has happened to her, Marc learns of her survival and tries to kill her again. Using her newly-acquired powers, Kim summons her car to come to her rescue. The driverless vehicles tears across the miles, destroying everything in its path as it races to its mistress's aid.Crash! is a complete muddle of a movie. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink yet, crucially, fails to tie it all together with any real sense of logic or narrative flow. There's nothing particularly frightening in it, despite efforts to make Lyon look creepy and otherworldly with her scarred face and orange-glowing eyes. The car is certainly not scary at all. It roams, rams, wrecks, smashes and destroys everything it comes into contact with… but the overwhelming impression is more of a Hal Needham/Burt Reynolds-style demolition derby than an ominous chiller in the tradition of Duel. Plus, of course, there's the gaping plot hole that the car is under the control of Lyon, one of the film's supposed 'good' characters. If evil Ferrer was the one guiding the killer automobile, things might make more sense. But in order to save her own life it is actually Lyon who causes the death of countless innocents. How are we meant to empathise with her when she's responsible for the death of half the road-users in the county?!? A strange, senseless and largely unsuccessful film, Crash! does not shine brightly in the possessed vehicle canon.

This movie appeared on CBS late night TV in the early 1980's. That's when CBS reran the old NBC mystery shows (Columbo, McCloud, Quincy) and some TV-movies in their late night schedule. Those were the days before VCR's, so you didn't have much choice for late night TV.Of all the bad 1970's B-movies, this film has the most absurd & disturbing opening scene. It's such an unpleasant scene, I changed channels the first time it was on. Several months later, they ran it again, so I reluctantly watched the entire movie. It opens with a couple on a road trip. You barely see a black sports car approaching from behind. Suddenly their van inexplicably just plunges off the road, and in an eerie slow-motion sequence, goes down a hill and crashes into the embankment, where it explodes into a massive fireball. It is such a distasteful and unsettling scene, it's impossible to sit through the rest of this trashy movie with the bad taste that scene left you with.The rest is average B-grade trash, only worthy for some stupid action car scenes, and for Jose Ferrer, who makes it halfway watchable. The director filmed some good car chases and stunts. But he has no heart or soul presenting the rest of the story. The remainder of the movie plays with the same distasteful, unpleasant style as the opening scene, which regurgitates in your stomach. It's too bad because the story could have been intriguing or original, but comes off as nasty.Jose Ferrer is an angry, bitter paraplegic who blames his wife (and her occult antiques) for the crash that left him paralyzed. It was that unknown car that caused the accident. She was not hurt, but he was left in a wheelchair. She deals in antique jewelry and acquires an ancient voodoo token. When she holds it in her hand, an unmanned black sports car speeds through the mountainsides by itself, running other cars off the road, causing crashes, and then speeding away with no driver.While she's driving her convertible with the roof down, Ferrer send his trained dobermans to jump in and attack her, hoping she'll crash and die. Instead she survives in a coma, then recovers with amnesia and a lot of plastic surgery.Since she has amnesia, he calls her to arrange an antiques sale. When she arrives, she doesn't remember the house, or the sauna (steam room) inside. There is one brief, frightening moment from Ferrer. As he shows her the house, he changes the subject from antiques to asking her if she remembers it. Then they get to the sauna, and an evil look comes over his face. He runs his wheelchair into her, pushing her inside, then locks her in and turns up the heat to melt her plastic surgery face, with some creepy 70's synthesizer sounds playing. Meanwhile her doctor suddenly realizes it was her husband who caused her accident and races against time to save her.

This combination of occult-horror and speeding car chase film somewhat effectively merges two of the more popular genres of the 1970s. I saw this back in 1977 when it first came out on a hunch that it might be fun, and it was the only horror flick playing at the time. As I remember, Jose Ferrer is an invalid with a younger wife, and she wanted to get rid of him, and visa versa. Somehow an occult figurine with evil spirits within comes into play and takes control of a Camaro/Firebird speedster, and goes around wrecking other cars and offing folks without a dent of it's own. Obviously a Charles Band low budget take on other slicker studio occult horror such as THE CAR. It's a good example of the Charles Band exploitation style and I remember it being fast-paced and fun, without any real memorable moments, but a nice way to spend a couple of hours, and made before Band started to become a bit pretentious. However, I have not yet been able to find a copy of it in any format anywhere yet! Any ideas out there?