It’s spooky season. You’re braving pumpkin spice mania at Trader Joe's, lighting bourbon hazelnut candles, and grabbing apple cider donuts on your way to the football game. You may be ready for fall, but are you ready for some hell on wheels?
Jerry
, the trustworthy super app
for car insurance shopping, checks out the most bone-chilling car horror movies
you’ve got to watch this Halloween. Car horror movies from the ‘50s and ‘70s
If you just can’t wait until December for some festive fun, check out the 1951 Cadillac Funeral Coach in Dead End. A horror movie and Christmas movie, the film features a man and his family driving to his mother-in-law’s for Christmas.
But what seemed like a convenient shortcut turns into a nightmarish encounter with a mystery woman wandering in white through the forest. To make matters worse, he’s also stalked by a morbid 1951 Cadillac Funeral Coach with an invisible driver, that transports victims in the dead of night.
Steven Spielberg’s 1971 feature Duel depicted a malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer. Or should we say, a rundown 1955 Peterbilt 281 tractor unit. The story follows a traveling salesman who pisses off an unseen truck driver, who then precedes to terrorize him seeking revenge.
Remember the “Satanic panic” horror craze in the ‘80s? The 1975 car horror movie Race with the Devil follows two motorcycle dealership owners and their wives on an RV road trip to a Colorado ski town. One night, the men witness a Satanic ritual in a field.
As the foursome attempts to venture out of their home state of Texas toward their Colorado vacation, they’re pursued by devil worshiper-driven vehicles at each town along the way. Hopefully, it won’t make you put off your next cross-country road trip.
Car Horror Movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s
It’s hard to forget the manic 1985 Peterbilt 359 EXHD from Joy Ride. What seemed like your typical buddy film meets rom-com proved us dead wrong. Brothers Paul Walker and Steve Zahn embark on a road trip while using the CB radio to prank people.
Unfortunately, they pranked the wrong man. “Rusty Nail” terrorized and stalked the duo before attempting to plow over them in his 18-wheeler. The psychotic monster truck driver was looking for much more than an apology.
Written and directed by the great Larry Cohen, the 1990 car horror movie The Ambulance sneaks in a bit of social commentary. A comic book artist, played by quirky Eric Roberts, puts a woman into an ambulance after she collapses on the street.
Unfortunately, she vanishes into thin air, never to be seen again. As more and more patients disappear into oblivion, the film incorporates metaphors for the medical field and health care industry.
How about some earthquake-causing man-eating worms? Tremors, another 1990 car horror movie, features a 1963 Jeep Gladiator J20 driven by Kevin Bacon’s character Val. That is until its tires are gobbled up by large, vicious worms aka Graboids. Natives of a small and isolated town must protect themselves from these underground creatures, which are murdering them one by one.
Car Horror movies from the ‘00s
The 2001 low-budget Jeeper Creepers still haunts many road trippers today. What seemed like a simple “driving home from college” road trip for a brother and sister, turned into relentless harassment by a rusty 1941 Chevy truck. Later, the two siblings spot the not-quite-human driver tossing bodies down a pipe through the ground, before discovering the unspeakable terror that lies beneath.
In the 2007 flick Death Proof, Kurt Russel plays stuntman Mike McKay, who outfitted his vehicle to essentially be “death proof.” In other words, anyone sitting in the driver’s seat won’t be killed in the event of a gruesome crash. But the passengers' Mike encounters don’t fare so well. The oddly structured car horror movie was directed by Quentin Tarantino.
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