Surprisingly good
This was much better than a movie about a killer car had any right to be.
The secret was making it a covert psychological horror, with Arnie’s descent into obsessive madness the true horror and tragedy.
The car is effective, though. Carpenter knows how to creep us out with the menacing look of the car playing 50’s tunes when it’s ready to kill.
The only disappointment was how tame the kills are. Carpenter made The Thing the year before - one of the goriest horrors ever - these deaths are entirely bloodless. Perhaps he took the critical mauling of The Thing to heart.