Wheels of Terror

It starts out okay; I like that compressed visual depth of field, as it evokes a distortion of reality, consistent with the story's theme. But oh how this film quickly deteriorates.

Driving a school bus for a living, Laura (Joanna Cassidy) is a single mom who has moved with her teenage daughter to a small, presumably quiet rural town to get away from big city crime. Much to her chagrin, an ugly yellowish old car with windows that apparently are tinted, as you cannot see inside, terrorizes Laura and her daughter, then terrorizes the whole town. The first half is marginal at best, as the script trends cliché-ridden and borrowed, and characters are superficial. Then comes that dreadful second half.

The script is written so that at the midpoint plot turn, Laura, driving the school bus, gives chase to the evil car, which has just kidnapped Laura's daughter. The chase "scene" expands to almost the entire second half, some 35 minutes. It's just Laura in the school bus and Laura's daughter kidnapped inside the car.

Sometimes the school bus chases the car. At other times the car chases the school bus. It all depends on where in the plot you arrive at, after you have used your remote to fast-forward through all that chase redundancy. The ending is as hokey and laughable as any ending I have seen. We get dust flying through the air, lots of frenetic background music, screaming, silly maneuvers, explosions, and vehicles that are so durable that even after falling off a cliff, they still return with purring engines and tires that never go flat.

The editing, stunts, and photography in the chase scenes are actually quite good. And Joanna Cassidy is a fine actress. But the script's plot structure is way too unbalanced. The action is not believable. And the film comes across as a rip-off of James Brolin's movie "The Car" (1977). "Wheels Of Terror" might have had some degree of credibility with a vastly rewritten script. As is, it's not worth watching unless the viewer is interested in learning the technical aspects of filming a chase scene.

Wheels of Terror is one of those movies that has a mixed theme of horror, mystery, and suspense. It is about a 1974 Dodge Charger (it is said by a police officer during the movie about the year of the car, but how he could have known that without seeing it is a mystery) that terrorizes an Arizona community. The grill of the car was customized for the movie to give it a satanic look. There are several clues throughout the movie that tells the viewer that nobody is driving the car, however nobody comes right out and says for sure. There also are no clue on where this car came from or how it became evil.

The main plot surrounds a mother and daughter who have just moved to Arizona from L.A. to be away from the city to start a new life in the country. Most of the main events of the story surround the car stalking young girls, which lead up to the final chase scene between the mother driving the mini bus and the car which kidnapped her daughter. The chase scene lasts a good half hour.

The acting in this movie is rather poor. You will ask yourself "how can anyone be so dumb?" Before the daughter is kidnapped by the car, there was at least two scenes where the car was about six feet away from her and she was completely blind to it. How can you not see a car that is right in front of your face that is about to run you down? The makers of this movie used a bit too much of the slow motion technique during the final chase scene to add more of a dramatic approach to what was actually happening. The movie is actually very good despite what some of the other critics may think, it is definitely worth seeing a few times. The suspense and mystery really make it worth while.

This movie is very similar to the 1977 movie, "The Car". The difference between this movie and "Wheels of Terror" is that "The Car" will run down anybody in it's way and is more ruthless. The movie is more violent than "Wheels of Terror". Another short story similar to "Wheels of Terror" is from one of the segments of the 1983 movie, "Nightmares". The segment is entitled "The Benediction", which is about a satanic driverless truck that terorizes a priest that is traveling across a desert. Unfortunately the segment is less than a half hour long, but is very creepy and suspenseful.

Joanna Cassidy stars as Laura, a loving mother who drives a school bus. A sick, twisted psychopath is driving around in a 1974 Dodge Charger and abducting and at times killing young girls in the small town she lives in. They are also terrorizing poor Laura until they are matched in a showdown car chase that could have been great, but teeters toward completely boring.

Directed by Christopher Cain and written by Alan B. McElroy. I was expecting Cain to breathe some life into this film other than the extreme over use of slow motion. As well as the whole idea of an evil car running around and chasing people down by 1990 was no where near fresh or original with the likes of Steven Spielberg's DUEL, Stephen King or John Carpenter's CHRISTINE or even THE HEARSE. All are better films, but if you have never seen those films this might work better, but I would suggest watching those films instead. In addition the ending is a complete WTF moment that completely derails the film.

Pretty dull thriller. The director chooses an "arty" approach with lots of slow-motion sequences, "poetic" music and minimal dialogue, and it doesn't work. The characters have no personality, the script is virtually non-existent and the suspense is deflated by the fact that the "evil" car's driver (or the evil car itself) has plenty of opportunities to get away from the heroine who chases him, but keeps returning to do battle with her as if he has some scores to settle (we never find out what they might be). While you're watching this movie, don't be surprised if your mind starts going elsewhere, like into thinking what's for dinner or the next day's chores. (*1/2)

That pretty much sums up the film. There's a car without a driver, the aformentioned hotshot, and a "suped-up" yellow schoolbus. The whole 1st half of the movie is set-up for the second half, which is a ridiculous chase between the "driverless car" and our heroine.