CRASH!

Marc is forced into a wheelchair following a car accident caused by his young wife Kim. The two live together with their dog in a large villa in California, and one day, when Kim leaves in the car to go to the village, her husband orders their dog to make her go off the road. Indeed, this happens: Kim is admitted to the nearby hospital in a comatose state. The man, however, does not give up and, intent on eliminating his wife, tries in every way to have her life support disconnected. But the woman, who holds tightly between her fingers the car keys with which she had the accident, to which is attached as a keychain an amulet depicting the Hittite god of revenge, has managed to develop an extrasensory power that allows her to control her car. Before Charles Band embarked on the successful path of a producer and founded Full Moon, before dolls and toys with murderous instincts entered his life, before all of this, the sympathetic Californian director/producer/writer had put together a shoddy horror production titled "Crash! – The Idol of Evil". It was 1977 and Band, up to that point, had only been involved under a pseudonym in the direction of a comedy, "Last Foxtrot in Burbank": it was finally time to get serious and dedicate himself to the true passion of his life, namely horror. With "Crash! – The Idol of Evil", also known as "Death Ride", Band has the merit of anticipating a couple of films that will gradually achieve success, namely the almost contemporary "The Black Car" and the subsequent "Patrick", the first for the gimmick of the killer car that will later reach notoriety especially with "Christine – The Infernal Machine" by John Carpenter, the second for the relevant detail of the person in a coma with extrasensory powers. Probably Band's idea was to ride the wave of action films with roaring engines and car races that a few years earlier had met with success here and there, the various "Point Zero" and "Zozza Mary, Crazy Gary", which Tarantino likes so much, for example, and build on it a little horror story made of curses and pseudo-demonic possessions. Let's be clear, "Crash! – The Idol of Evil" is a mediocre and narratively shoddy film, in which it is very difficult to find even minimally plausible everything that happens. From Marc's plan to get rid of his wife using his Doberman to make her go off the road, to the motivations that drive the killer car. But the characters themselves are poorly defined, starting with the jealous and resentful Marc who wants to kill his wife because he holds her responsible for his paralysis, to Kim herself who seems continuously at the mercy of events, despite her status as a supernatural avenger. Despite this, the film has a certain B-movie effectiveness, with well-directed and sufficiently spectacular action scenes, bizarre deaths, and a rather well-chosen cast, in which stand out José Ferrer ("Sentinel"; "Dracula vs. Zombies") in the role of the evil Marc and the beautiful Sue Lyon ("Lolita"; "Alligator") as his wife Kim. In a small role also appears the legendary John Carradine! The anticipatory importance of the film should not be underestimated, in fact, in addition to the mentioned titles that with suspicious similarity have some elements in common with "Crash! – The Idol of Evil", there is also "From Coma with Revenge", the beautiful episode directed by Rob Schmidt for the series "Masters of Horror", which incredibly resembles Band's film. Not beautiful but worth recovering. Italian DVD (unfortunately cut) from Mosaico Media. Watch a clip of CRASH - THE IDOL OF EVIL