It’s a ‘57 Plymouth Fury that has a(n evil) mind of its own. Again, I’m the last one to get on the (evil) bus to see this. I am (evil) sorry.

I didn’t find it particularly scary, but I mostly enjoyed it. I did find the language between the teen leads to be rather salty for the mid-1980s. I thought that was more of a ’70s thing, but the trend survived to here, at least. It is interesting to note that the main boys, Keith Gordon and John Stockwell, have had reasonable success as directors in recent years. Stockwell does surf movies like Into the Blue and Blue Crush and Blue Watery Blue Blue. Gordon has gone a bit artsier, including the latest incarnation of The Singing Detective, Waking the Dead, and the terrific Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night. The female lead, Alexandra Paul, went on to become the least-endowed woman on Baywatch.

So, the car is really really mean, and it has the ability to repair itself when it gets wrecked. The pre-digital effects that make this work are pretty cool. Apparently, they used high-power vaccums to implode the cars from the inside, and then they just reversed the footage, so the car appears to heal. The effect is kind of like how a Joan Rivers plastic surgery must be.

The movie starts and ends with George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone.” Man I hate that song. I guess it sort of works here.