Starring - Jose Ferrer (Dune, The Magical World of Disney), Sue Lyon (The Night of the Iguana, End of the World), and John Ericson (Airwolf, Knight Rider)
Release Date - 1976
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "An occult object takes possession of a driverless car and causes one spectacular crash after another until fifty cars are pounded into a mass of twisted metal"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)
Rating (out of 5):
I was introduced to Full Moon, Empire, and Moonbeam Entertainment at a young age so I thought I had a grip on the films of Charles Band. However, Full Moon recently caught me off guard when they announced the release of the 1976 Charles Band directed horror film Crash! on blu. When I saw the blu artwork and the tagline I knew this was going to be a wild one so I quickly reached out to them and they were kind enough to send over a review copy. I want to once again thank Full Moon for hooking me up with this copy to check out.
The film follows the young and beautiful wife of an old man who had his mobility taken from him during a car crash. She finds an old relic on a road side stand and decides to buy it for her husband. However, the bitter old man is mean to her and eventually kicks her out of his home. She takes his new gift with her and as she is driving down the road she is attacked by his dog and wrecks her car. She is taken to the hospital gripping the talisman and is recovering while her car continues to drive around killing anyone it meets. The man, aware of the power in the relic now, tries to get it back from her without her actually seeing him.
Crash! looked extremely fun and campy but it struggled actually finding it's footing. I know it was one of Band's earliest films and it looks like he took a lot away from the experience but it wasn't as enjoyable as I had hoped. The acting in this one is fairly solid. The characters are generic but fit the story very well and the cast shows a lot of talent in front of the camera but you find yourself focused more on where the story is actually going instead of the cast that is carrying you there. The story for this one has a fun occult angle and a possessed car but The Wraith like story is not full explored or capitalized on. It was a seriously underutilized concept that should have been the main focus of the film instead of the connection to the "professor" and the artifact that was found with his wife that is suffering from amnesia. It could have been so much more enjoyable than what it is. Finally, the film has a lot of car crashes that are not as exciting as they sound and lacks any blood and gore you would expect from Band. The car crashes are, honestly, not that fun and almost feel out of place when compared with the remainder of the story. Overall, Crash! wasn't for me. It's cool to see some of Band's earlier films but it's nowhere near as fun as the films he would be associate with in the next decade. Collectors may want this one but fans of Band and Full Moon may want to skip over it.
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