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BONUS: Burning Paradise Ep. 4 "The Car" · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Curly Tlapoyawa, and I love movies.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a good chunk of my childhood being snuck into the drive-in by my parents, where I took in double and triple features of cinematic greatness.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when movies became available on home video in the 1980s, well, all bets were off.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's no exaggeration to say that my life was largely shaped by movies.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: In 2004, I opened Burning Paradise Video, where I offered a carefully curated selection of independent, foreign, underground, and cult films to the public.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Burning Paradise, my love letter to a bygone era.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Episode 4.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know what scares the hell out of me?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, not the thought of another Trump presidency, though I I find that particular idea more vomit-inducing than frightening.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Give up.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you, dear listeners, ordinary inanimate objects coming to life and trying to kill me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what.
• 1:16
  unknown: Mm-hmm.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ever since I was knee high to a chainsaw, my dreams have been haunted by images of household appliances and vehicles possessed by some otherworldly force making every possible effort to dismember me.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about demonic dolls here.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, who wasn't scared shitless by that freaking clown scene in poltergeist, but dolls are tiny and made of easily destroyed materials.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, what gets my engine of fear revved up are cars, trucks, lawnmowers, and other metal objects of mayhem.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: These things are not only lethal, but you just know that death by demon-driven bulldozer would freaking hurt.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cinematically speaking, the highly underrated, in my opinion, maximum overdrive, still one of the best horror movie soundtracks ever, and the slick storytelling of Christine are the most easily recognizable entries in the Cars Come to Life subgenre of horror.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: What can I say?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen King must have had the same nightmares as me.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But my personal fave is an often overlooked gem from the late 1970s titled The Car.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I first saw the car on HBO back in the day.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Stolen HBO, if you're wondering.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And boy did it scare the hell out of me.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, when the urge to watch it struck again, I found myself at a loss.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: For the longest time, I was unable to find a copy of it available to purchase or even rent.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it was some highly sought-after rarity, which it eventually became, by the way, but because my freaking moron cousins in Albuquerque insisted on calling it the Devil Car my entire young adulthood, leading me on a wild goose chase to track down the wrong damn movie.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I finally realized what the movie was actually called, I was able to get a copy of my own and dig right in.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And boy howdy was I glad I made the effort.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because the car kicked some serious ass.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: A creepy, if vague, quote by none other than Anton LeVay, founder of The Church of Satan, gets things rolling as we are introduced to a pair of perky teenagers racing their bikes down a lonely desert road.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it doesn't take long for a mysterious black sedan to show up and promptly mow these poor little bastards down.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Elliot Silverstein, who cut his teeth directing episodes of The Twilight Zone, the car is set in a small New Mexico town, where local sheriff Wade Parent, played by James Brolin back when he was super cool, keeps the peace.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: As Sheriff Parent deals with his mundane daily routines and duties, he finds out that a sinister car has been racking up a nice little body count on his home turf.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Roadblocks are set up and a manhunt begins.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Car hunt, shall we?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But as the death toll rises, it becomes apparent that the car is being propelled by some sinister force.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Could it possibly be Satan?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The supernatural element of the car's motives are brought to light when Sheriff Parent's cute girlfriend, television mainstay, Kathleen Lloyd, seeks shelter in a graveyard with a group of kids.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The car refuses to enter the graveyard, but blasts its horn and spins donuts to menace the hiding townspeople.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that might sound tame, but it would seriously scare the hell out of me in real life.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's really interesting about the car is how every single honest and good person in the film meets a gruesome end, while the town pricks all seem to survive.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: After a deadly game of cat and mouse, including a scene in which the car jumps through an entire house, we get a final face-off, where the cops enlist the help of the local wife beating drunk to help them.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not going to tell you exactly how it ends, but I will say that it involves cars and crashes.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent cinematography, characterization, and pretty solid performances easily elevate the car above the level of schlock that seems to permeate modern horror.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from being parodied in an episode of Futurama, The Curse of the Wear Car, the car gets little love from mainstream audiences.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a shame.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to admit, while I certainly dig the film, I always thought the tagline of what Evil Drives was kind of a letdown.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would think Evil would be driving a massive flame belching child-killing Satan-fueled monster truck from hell.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the exact opposite of the God-driven goodness of the Pope Mobile.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, we get a pretty mean-looking black sedan with tinted windows and a foghorn.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Intimidating, yes, but hardly evil incarnate.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Satan's Hummer was in the shop.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Evil has visited the earth in many forms.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now it returns as the car.