True horror icons come from Detroit

What was the first horror movie that really scared you? I mean really, did it really keep you up at night? For me, it was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake from 2003. I was 11 or 12, and my older cousin thought it would be a good idea to introduce me to the horrors of Leatherface at an early age. In hindsight, not a great idea.

These days, horror is the genre that comforts me. Most Fridays, I’ll watch a movie like Trick treat or Strangers– Two of my favorites – as a way to unwind, ironically, from the long week.

Of course, cars play a big role in the horror scene. Some of the most famous movie cars in history come from horror films. the Ghostbusters The Ecto-1 is arguably the most popular, closely followed by the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo And Dragula from Monsters. The list goes on.

But this is not about Those Cars.

This Halloween week, I wanted to take a look at the many malaise-era (and near-malaise-era) vehicles that litter the background of some of our favorite horror movies — the rickety sheriff’s pickup truck, the oblivious mother’s big station wagon, or the unknown killer’s four-door sedan. While they may not take center stage, these vehicles play an important role in setting the tone for many of these films, and are pretty much ubiquitous across the timelines.

For those who don’t know, a quick history lesson on the Age of Tribulation. Centered around the 1973 oil crisis and the Clean Air Act, automakers were forced to scramble to design more efficient cars as a way to combat shortages and skyrocketing prices. It produced cars like the Ford Pinto, Buick LeSabre, and AMC Hornet, cars that were so underpowered and mediocre that they became notorious. This gave rise to the terminology “Age of Malaise” that we use to describe the entire period today.

It should be said that malaise is not the same only The era of American cars is represented in the horror genre. But some of the most popular horror films of all time are full of cars from the 70s and 80s, which quickly became the standard for many filmmakers, even in modern horror films.

originally The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Starting in 1974, the heroes pick up a hitchhiker in a vintage 1972 Ford Club Wagon, setting the stage for the horrors yet to come. Even in later iterations of the film and series, the directors stuck with a version of the same old American truck (the Dodge in the 2003 film), rather than replacing it with something modern like, say, a Honda Odyssey. It just made more sense.

And four years later, John Carpenter’s classic film, Halloweenwill take us to the outskirts of Haddonfield, Illinois (although the bulk of it was filmed in Southern California). There, large-body cars from the Malaise era littered the streets, marking one of the first instances of such vehicles playing a larger role in the genre as a whole.

Throughout the first film, Michael Myers stalks his victims in the Ford LTD he stole from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium at the beginning of the film. It features stickers on the door panels reading “Smith’s Grove – Warren County.”

It is the perfect choice for the vehicle; The anonymity of the state-owned station wagon sets the tone flawlessly. The decision to use LTD also came down to costs – a theme among horror films of the era; The original Halloween Filmed on a shoestring budget of around $300,000, LTD was rented cheaply for two weeks of filming, before being returned shortly thereafter.

The car was auctioned off after the film and has changed hands several times. But in 2022, Carpenter was reunited with his beloved station wagon, which ended up on display at the Monroeville Convention Center in Pennsylvania during Steel City Con:

It wasn’t just limited to LTD. Dozens of malaise-era cars were scattered in the background of the first car Halloween Movie, as was the case in any middle-class American suburb in the late 1970s. Annie Brackett, played by Nancy Casey, drives a mid-1970s Chevy Monte Carlo. Spoiler alert: She meets her maker in the front seat.

The 80s brought more horror, and more amazing background vehicles.

evil deadin 1981, gave us Ash’s yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, which would appear in every subsequent installment after that (and even subtly in some of Raimi’s other films). “This car has been in more movies than most actors,” Bruce Campbell, who played Ash, once joked.

evil spirit It takes us back to the suburbs in 1982, which means a whole host of Malaise cars to gawk at, including the Freeling family’s 1981 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser – a car that truly defined that era.

But it was Christine In 1983 it would turn an American car into a star. Although it was about a decade away from being considered a sick-era car, the 1958 Plymouth Fury featured in the film was familiar—a perfect choice for a killer and sensitive car. As many other cars faded into the background, ChristineThe Plymouth would go on to become one of the most iconic cars in movie history.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “Okay, yeah. naturally Horror movies made in the 70s and 80s had cars from that era in them.” And obviously you’re right. But as we saw with Texas chainsaweven more recent iterations of those classics — and some quite fledgling horror franchises — look to the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s as a way to help set the stage.

For many filmmakers, this era represents horror at its peak – Carpenter, Craven and Romero remain some of the best to ever do it. Modern horror seeks to capture even a small portion of the same magic, especially TV shows as of late.

Strange things It was one of the first modern horror shows to truly embrace this retro vibe. Its creators, the Duffer Brothers, specifically chose the 1980s for their popular horror series to – once again – channel the feel-good movie vibes of the 70s and 80s. This is reflected well in the vehicle choices; Jim Hopper drives an old K5 Blazer, Joyce Byers drives a Pinto, and there are countless G-Series trucks, Diplomats, and Ford LTDs scattered throughout the series.

to cut– Although it is not a “horror” series in the traditional sense – it embraces a similar theme. Although the timeline is vague, several characters drive around in Malaise-era cars, adding to the unsettling nature of the show. We see Helena Egan (Brett Lauer) in a 1968 Lincoln Continental and countless Chevy, Ford, and Dodge cars of the time.

In an interview with Road and pathprop expert Katherine Miller explained why these specific vehicles were used in the show:

“We always try to give anything or cars or design in the show some sense of pieces, some sense of being broken in half, Innie vs the Outie… Every car you see in every lane, even in the distance, was put together by us.” Nothing was left to chance, and nothing was just what anyone could bring from the background. We took on those all-important cars, because we wanted to always have the ability to style whatever frame we were looking at with our own aesthetic.’

One of the most obvious examples of the “distress” era in modern horror film is 2014’s He follows. Like a lot to cutdirector David Robert Mitchell kept the timeline intentionally vague. But it’s clear that he’s taking cues from the ’70s, ’80s, and even the ’90s, specifically mentioning his love for Carpenter and family. Halloween film.

location He follows Sets the overall tone. The film is set in Detroit, and uses themes such as suburban decay and societal decay, something that is not hard to find in the greater Detroit area around that time. In a Reddit AMA from 2014Mitchell said that the film “had to be set in Detroit,” and that he “wrote it specifically for Detroit and the suburbs of metro Detroit.” Mitchell said:

“The locations have personal meaning to me. The dichotomy that exists between city and suburbs was an important thematic element of the story. I wanted, in some way, to show the poor segregation that exists between these places in terms of wealth and race.

This tone is conveyed not only through the set, but also through the cars. Throughout the film, we see Ford LTDs, Chevy Impalas, Buick Electras, and more. Even the opening scene – also represented on the film’s poster – features a 1975 Plymouth Gran Fury which plays a crucial role in telling the story.

Even with the emergence of new horror films in recent years, one thing remains true: dystopian era vehicles are still present in the genre. Many modern films and TV shows maintain the spirit of the 1970s and 1980s, because for many viewers, these often-criticized vehicles were little more than background filler, but horror icons of their own.