Hypothetical scenario: a serial killer has entered your 10th floor apartment (don’t ask how, just run with it). Against all odds, you’ve managed to barricade him in the bathroom. You run out the door, take the elevator downstairs, get in your car, and flee to the safety of the local police station. Is that the correct thing to do? No. The elevator could decide to kill you, as seen in 1983’sThe Lift. And if it doesn’t, your car could, like the black sedan inThe Car. And if it doesn’t, but you get a flat tire, the spare tire could, as it does inRubber. Sounds crazy, but if the makers of these films are right, you may never be safe again.
Christine (Christine, 1983)
Arnie’s (Keith Gordon) new girlfriend has beautiful curves, great taste in music, looks spectacular in red, and has a body to die for — literally. She’s Christine, and she’s a car. A 1958 Plymouth Fury, to be exact. The first of three on the list taken from aStephen Kingadaptation,Christineintroduces us to nerdy Arnie, who buys the car, named “Christine” by the previous owner, and begins to restore it. The more Arnie works on Christine, the more his appearance and personality changes, from bespectacled geek to cocky, arrogant greaser. He becomes obsessed with Christine and, unfortunately for those that bullied Arnie, Christine is obsessed with him. Let’s just say their bullying days are behind them.
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Happy Toyz Truck (Maximum Overdrive, 1986)
Earth passes through the tail of the Rhea-M comet in the space of a week. “So?” you may ask. Well, the event just so happens to make machines come to life and attack humans. Not so smart-arse now, are we? There are lots of machines to choose from that begin wreaking havoc in the town of Wilmington, North Carolina. An ATM that calls a customer an “asshole”. A drawbridge that lifts itself. A video game that electrocutes people. An electric carving-knife that turns itself on and attacks a waitress. And, in a particularly hilarious “should we really laugh at this?” moment,a soda-pop machine that nards a baseball coach before killing him with a pop can to the head. But the big bad here is the sentient Happy Toyz truck, the one with a large Green Goblin head attached to the front of it. The beast kills dozens before it’s taken out by a rocket launcher at the end. Kills? Not really — they all just might be semi-dead.
Robert the Tire (Rubber, 2010)
There’s some weirdness involving an audience watching a film, which are the events of the movie itself, and so they’re in the movie yet watching it… Don’t even try, seriously. All you need to know isRubber’s antagonist: Robert the Tire. Robert comes to life in a California desert, learning how to stand up and roll. It runs over a plastic bottle and a scorpion, but can’t crush a glass beer bottle by rolling over it. No problem. Robert has psychokinetic powers, and uses them to fracture the bottle, squash a tin can, and cause a rabbit to go boom. It tries to use its powers on a woman nearby, but a truck runs Robert over before he can kill her. So, Robert blows up the head of the truck driver. The tire enters a motel room, where a maid finds the tire showering — no lie — and throws it out of the room, only for the tire to come back in and blow up her head. Lots of heads blowing up. Then the tire is shot, seemingly dead, but is reincarnated as a tricycle, which leads a group of other tires towards Hollywood. Absolutely tread-ful, but spare-d no expense. No date is given, but must have been a Goodyear… an expensive one for sure, what with inflation and all…
Bulldozer (Killdozer!, 1974)
Somewhat surprisingly, given the subject,Killdozer!is the only film on the list with an exclamation mark in the title. Which it should have. It has a freaking alien-aura possessed bulldozer in it, for crying out loud! Long story short, a meteorite crashes to Earth on a remote island off the coast of Africa. Said bulldozer is used by construction workers on the island to try and move the meteorite, but a blue aura is given off by the space rock that moves to the bulldozer. Foreman Lloyd Kelly (Clint Walker) orders that the bulldozer not be used. Everyone listens, movie ends. Somebody doesn’t listen, and the bulldozer comes to life, destroying their two-way radio and picking the workers off one by one.
Floor Lamp (Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes, 1989)
Here is today’s helpful hint: if there’s a yard sale at a house that’s reputed to be haunted, even after a “successful” exorcism, don’t buy anything. It’s a lesson that Helen (Peggy McCay) should have learned. But she didn’t, and ends up buying a kitschy brass floor lamp for her sister in California. Only the evil entities from the infamous Amityville home now liveinthe lamp, and make the long cross-country trip to California with the hideous lamp. The lamp arrives at Alice Leacock’s (Jane Wyatt) home, where Helen’s sister Nancy (Patty Duke) and Nancy’s children are staying after the death of Nancy’s husband. The lamp gets plugged in, gets turned on, andta-da, instant creepy stuff. The animals are panicked, demons are in the wiring, Fred the parrot gets microwaved, electric saw turns on, and little Jessica (Brandy Gold) can see daddy in the lamp. Only daddy is the devil (Jon Rice), and Jessica is slowly being taken over.
Clock (Amityville 1992: It’s About Time, 1992)
Another helpful hint: if there’s an antique time piece on the ruins of a house that was reputed to be haunted, leave it be. Not widowed father Jake Sterling (Stephen Macht), however. He finds a nifty antique mantle clock in Amityville and brings it home to California (which apparently is the nexus of all evil since that’s now two Amityville items to find their way there). The clock was created by a 15th century necromancer, or more commonly known as an eater of the dead, just another contribution to the evil of Amityville. Once it’s placed on the mantle of Sterling’s home, things go cuckoo pretty quick. Sterling is attacked by a neighborhood dog, hedges are set on fire, the dog is murdered, time itself skips hours and slows down, and people die.
Bed (Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, 1977)
Once upon a time, a demon fell in love with a fair maiden, and created a bed on which they could have coitus. Alas, the maiden died during their tryst, causing the demon to weep tears of blood on the bed, which led to the bed coming to life. When slumber falls upon the demon, the bed layeth silent, but every 10 years he wakes, and the bed dineth upon humans. But hark! Today brings forth a champion, the brother to one of three women the bed has devoured, and by having coitus with the bed’s mother, now revived, the bed bursts into flames. And they (presumably) lived happily ever after.
Spa (Death Spa, 1989)
Welcome to the future of the workout, StarBody Health Fit Spa! Our high-tech gym equipment is run by a state-of-the-art super computer, which may be possessed by the owner’s deceased wife. Put on your bright neon spandex and come on down! Check out our steam room, complete with chemical rain. Our pool with a diving board that only almost killed one of our clients. An arm-press machine that will give you those ripped abs you’re looking for (or just rip your abs apart). A sauna so hot it will blow your mind. Literally. A tanning bed that grills like it’s fromGeorge Foreman. Come once, and you’ll never want to leave. Or be allowed to leave.
Elevator (The Shaft, 2001)
Richard Roundtreeis John Shaft, the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks, a complicated man that no one understands but his woman… wait, we’re not talking aboutShaft? Oh…THE Shaft. Very different.The Shafttells the tale of three main express elevators in the 102-floor Millennium Building that begin having technical issues. In no particular order: kills a blind man and his guide dog; decapitates a security guard; launches a roller skater out of the 86th floor to his death; an elevator cab hits the top floor so fast that the floor flies off and kills everyone in it; and slices a SWAT officer in half. Despite the deaths, it’s still a very uplifting film that should go down on your “must watch” list.
Dress (In Fabric, 2018)
Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) heads to the department store to pick up a new dress for her date. A beautiful red dress catches her eye, and the store clerk convinces her to buy it. It looks stunning on her, but she develops a rash wearing it, so she throws it in the washing machine. Strangely, the washing machine breaks down. Hmm. The next day, Sheila learns that the dress is a one-of-a kind, and a store model was killed after wearing it for the catalogue. The dress is ripped while on her date, but repairs itself later that day and moves about in the closet at night. Justification for a return? You’d think, but the store refuses to take it back, and with the dress in the trunk of her car, Sheila is killed in a car accident. The dress falls into the possession of a few more people, who also die after wearing it.
Jeans (Slaxx, 2020)
Canadian Cotton Clothiers is preparing for the launch of Super Shapers, designer jeans that conform to any body type. Only there’s a pair that are possessed by a 13-year-old child sweatshop laborer, killed by a thresher used to collect cotton for the Super Shapers. He’s grumpy, to say the least, and the jeans go off on a wildly off-the-rails killing spree. They constrict around the waist of one woman until she’s torn in half, the zipper severs body parts, and generally lots of people die and get eaten by possessed jeans.
Laundry Folding Machine (The Mangler, 1995)
The Mangler is a large laundry press at the Blue Ribbon Laundry service. One of the workers accidentally cuts herself trying to avoid being hit by an old ice box. An old possessed ice box, and when the ice box and splashed blood make contact with the Mangler, the machine comes alive. It first chomps down on an elderly worker, but it does crush and fold her like a sheet, so that’s something. It turns out that the town elders have been sacrificing their virgin daughters on their 16th birthday to the machine, receiving wealth and power in return, so the damn thing was already bloodthirsty. After killing a few more folks, an exorcism is attempted to drive the demon out. Doesn’t work, and now the machine is alive and mobile. You might say the Tide had turned…
Condom (Killer Condom, 1996)
Something strange is afoot at the Hotel Quickie. Four gay men have had their penises ripped off, a professor loses his penis after blackmailing a student of his into sex, and the detective on the case loses a testicle as he attempts to have sex with a gigolo he’s attracted to. The common thread? Condoms.Killercondoms. Developed by some wack-job religious zealot who’s developed these condoms to destroy gays, hookers, transvestites and other morally bereft pervs. Surprisingly better than it sounds. Fun fact: the original title was actuallyTheShaft(that’s not true, but couldn’t resist).
