Considering how memorable the stories are, it’s obvious Stephen King and the fearmeisters responsible for The Car were tapping into something primal and universal with the idea of an evil car.
I just think that by having the car totally flip out and kill people, they missed out on a prime opportunity for dread and true horror. A murderous demon car jumping through windows to run over girlfriends? That’s just a quick, cheap cat-jumping-out-of-the-cupboard scare. How come nobody’s captured the true long-term dread and despair? The kind you only get from owning a no-less evil, but passive-aggressive car?
Like, for instance, a POS Jetta that’s so boring and practical it latches onto your soul like a deer tick, slowly sucking the life out of you over eight long years. And lets every convenience feature break in the first year or two, but refuses to die. And goes dead in the middle of 70mph freeway traffic. And then its alternator goes out and kills the battery, stranding you in a ditch on the side of 101 north where you have to get towed to pay over 800 bucks for a repair on a car you don’t even want anymore.
It’s not just soul-draining and money-draining, but it does weird things to you, psychologically: I’m so fed up with it now that I’m ready to take a Bullitt. I’ve never seen the movie, and I’ve never been into muscle cars, but damn that’s a nice-looking car.
At this point, I’m ready to just get a big, stupid, impractical and irresponsible car. So what if the planet’s running out of oil? Haven’t I offset my carbon footprint enough over the past eight years, driving a car that gets 28 mpg? What’s the harm in going back into debt to get an overpriced car that’s bad for the environment? Or a convertible that’s completely impractical for the San Francisco bay area?