Why the why?

There's a blog I read, 'The Horror Digest... (and other stuff),' that covers scary movies, cool odds and ends, and how great sandwiches can be. The writer is one of those people who appreciates good, classic cinema whether it's flavored with adrenaline or cheese, so she's got my interest from the get go. I check in every once in a while, and so far I've been able to resist the compulsion to go back and read every-single-post. (But there's a quote from the Borg that is probably appropriate here) Today when I noticed an entry on one of my old favorites, I had to check it out.

'The Car' is another of the movies that I saw as a kid that I think really influenced the way I tell a story. Set in a small town somewhere in a Utah desert, it shows how one bizarre looking car carefully and sadistically goes about tearing apart all the bonds that keep the community together. With no driver behind the wheel, it runs over, crushes, and knocks off a cliff anyone it encounters, but in a strangely methodical pattern. The first pair to die are two kids, off on their own a mile or so from town. Next is a man hitchhiking by a house at the outskirts, leaving the family as witnesses. Each attack is more brazen than the last, until it runs people over right in the middle of the streets. Confronted with the growing realization that nothing they do stops it, we see all the protagonists' hope gradually become despair.

Yet through the whole thing, no reason for the car's vendetta is ever given. At the beginning of the film we see the car drive up out of the desert, and that's it. Now the blood can start to flow. When I showed the movie to my wife, her first question, and the question asked in 'The Horror Digest,' was, why? Was the town built on an Indian burial ground? Did an innocent motorist get killed on the streets? Is there a cursed artifact tucked away in someone’s home, brought back from a vacation in the big city? Why is this car here, hurting us?

Believe it or not, I have never asked that question, not even once. Maybe I'm just conditioned from too much TV in my earlier years to just swallow whatever gets set in front of me, but anyone who knows me or reads my ramblings can probably figure that's not how my head works. I'll take something apart down to the bare bones and then see just what those bones are made of, and if they really fit together as neatly as they seem to. I WANT to know the why, and all the whys behind it.

To me, the sort of why that would make the attacks logical doesn't fit the story. Some time ago I was looking for a particular scene in the film on Youtube, hoping that someone would have posted it. What I ran across was a video from a guy with a vlog who was posting about movies that he felt ripped off one of his favorites, Jaws. I got a bit irked at his opinion, but I can see a comparison, one that touches on my point. In Jaws, there's no reason given for why this three-ton tooth machine is suddenly here and dining on people. It's something about how we relate to this kind of predator that our heads tend to skip the logical questions about it and go straight to 'GET THE ---- OUT OF HERE!' The shark is a force of nature, one that we already have a very personal understanding with. To twist a quote from Jaws, you're on the beach and someone yells 'shark' and you panic. You're standing in the street and someone yells 'car' and you panic. Why? Because you already know you're vulnerable.

Right there is your answer. Maybe the feeling doesn't resonate as clearly as the film makers hoped, but the logic is the same. The car doesn't need someone to drive it, it doesn't need to refuel, and it doesn't need to worry about bending an axle or puncturing a tire. It kills people and shatters our belief in a fair universe because that's what it's here to do. It's primal, elemental, and as deadly and uncaring as a tornado, or a shark. If not fought and defeated it would kill everyone in sight, then knock over every building and crush every artifact of man's creation until there was nothing left but ruin. Then it would move on to the next town.

Spoiler: In the movie, after the car is defeated by burying it under half a mountain, what happens? The town is saved, the sun rises, and our heroes start to get back to their lives. Then we see the car pulling into a major city, ready to start all over again, because that's what it's here to do.

If you have any love for scary movies, thoughtful critiques, or appreciation for a picture of a polite British boy captioned with 'A naked American man stole my balloons,' then go check out The Horror Digest...(plus other stuff) at http://horrordigest.blogspot.com/. I've given up hope of not going through the whole thing, and am leaving its window open on my browser. So far I'm back to 2010, and still smiling, laughing, and occasionally cringing.

I'm also still writing.