There is one crucial difference between mere car movies and outright car fetish movies. Car movies – the ones that feature races and car chases – are about the drivers. Car fetish movies, on the other hand, tend to care about the cars just as much – of not more so – than the drivers. In a car movie, a car’s make and model will serve to reflect on the taste of the man (and it’s always a man) who owns it. In a car fetish movie, a car’s make and model will be listed so as to make the gearheads in the audience salivate. It doesn’t really matter who drives the car, so long as we get to see it in action.
The Fast & Furious series rides the line between character and fetish. Sure, we get a vicarious thrill watching Paul Walker and Vin Diesel drive fast, and, at least in the more dramatically successful films, we understand who the characters are and why they’re committing the crimes they are committing. But at the same time, each film features at least one scene (usually three or four) of the drivers at an underground street racing competition, showing off their custom paint jobs, souped-up homemade engines, and wicked sound systems. In these scenes, the cars clearly matter more than any of the people standing near them. Well, with the possible exception of the hot, hot models in tiny, tiny shorts. Which arouses you more: the bikini babe, or the wicked neon blue Shelby GT500 with an all-aluminum supercharged 5.4L V8, 550hp, and 6-speed manual transmission?
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There is certainly something gloriously pure about the car fetish film, that is most certainly in the tradition of the age-old exploitation and grindhouse movie tradition. In a car fetish film, you don’t need drama. You don’t even really need a story or interesting characters. All you need is access to awesome cars, and an editor clever enough to construct interesting race sequences. Indeed, in such movies plot can feel like a hindrance, and human beings like nothing but a visual obstruction, in front of the cars.
These films can be awesomely fun, so long as the filmmakers don’t have any illusions beyond what they’re doing. They are shooting the cars. If they are pretending to have a story, then the films fall apart. I refer specifically to the Michael Bay Transformers films. Those films, at least in fits, are most certainly about the souped-up supercars that the titular transforming robots transform into. The character of Bumblebee, for instance, turns into a new model with every passing film, clearly just showing off the chassis, chrome rims, and giant noisy motors in a way that evokes centerfolds and wet flesh. The Transformers movies, however, get lost in special effects and military fetishism as well, causing them to read as chaotic and dumb.
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And car fetish movies, despite the sexual name of the subgenre, aren’t just for adults. Kids have more vehicle fetish movies than any other audience. Consider the popularity of the Pixar/Disney film Cars. Sure, little kids don’t tend to know the makes and models of cars, and no real makes or models are listed in the movie, but Cars directly humanizes a little-boy car fetish perfectly. You like playing with fast, red cars? How about if the car could talk? What if all the cars could talk? You want to see that movie? The answer, adults, is going to be a resounding “Yes!”
Further consider something like Thunderbirds (in all its iterations). A team of heroes who require access to fancy, color-coded rockets, hovercrafts, submarines, and airships in order to mount daring rescues. Sure, we may “care” about the Tracy family, but the appeal of Thunderbirds is the vehicles. The shape, the color, the capability of these massive, amazing ships. We, particularly as males, fall in love with big noisy machines at an early age, thanks to some of these movies, and some of us never fall out of love with them.
Here is a short list of some of the most entertaining car fetish movies out there. Keep in mind: These are not movies about people. These are movies about cars. Noisy, fast, amazing cars.
Slideshow: Seven Furiously Great Car Fetish Movies
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
7 Furiously Great Car Fetish Movies
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Redline (2007)
I'll just quote the first piece of trivia listed on IMDb.com to illustrate the real stars of this film: “Redline marks the on-screen debut of the Swedish-made Koenigsegg CCX. Priced at over $500,000, the CCX sports a 4.7 liter twin-supercharged V8 that churns out 806 horsepower and does a top speed of over 245 mph.” Eddie Griffin is in the movie too. What does he do in the movie? I couldn't say, but “the comedian/actor Eddie Griffin destroyed a rare million-dollar Enzo Ferrari (which belonged to the film's producer, Daniel Sadek) on Monday 3/26/07, when he crashed it into a barricade while promoting this movie. He was unhurt in the low-speed incident, at Irwindale Speedway, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. He was practicing for a celebrity charity racing event tied to this upcoming film, causing $300,000 damage to the car (including labor and parts). Sadek estimated that the car was worth $1.1 million, and said he was just happy that Griffin was unharmed.
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Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)
Nicolas Cage has to steal a bunch of cars in a short amount of time, or his brother will be killed. Despite an awesome cast including Cage, Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, and Giovanni Ribisi, the models of the cars are front and center in this, well, high-octane thriller. All fifty models on display are listed in detail online, the true star being “Eleanor,” a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500, the most coveted of all Mustangs.
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Vanishing Point (1971) and Death Proof (2007)
Barry Newman must deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Although the original film is more of a wacky roadtrip movie, the Dodge Challenger is most certainly the main character. Indeed, the car became so well-known that in 2007, the characters in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof tracked down the exact same make, model, and color car just for their own jollies and wacky stunts. Seeing Zoe Bell strap herself across the hood of a car most certainly has a lingering sexuality to it.
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Christine (1983)
Christine is a pretty fun horror film that is based entirely in the obsession held by the teenage hot-rod enthusiast. Directed by John Carpenter and based on a Stephen King story, Christine is about 1958 Plymouth Fury that is, well, just born bad. Christine occasionally falls in love with teenage boys (?), and has a tendency of springing to life and running down her owner's foes. It's like a dark mirror to The Love Bug. But Christine exists in the milieu of gearheads and greasemonkeys, who can see the beauty of the evil car. If you're into cars, you'll be rooting for Christine. Car enthusiasts hated the film because, well, over a dozen coveted Furies were smashed. Cars, I'm afraid, were actually harmed in the making of this film.
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Love the Beast (2009)
Actor Eric Bana directed this documentary film about, well, vehicle fetishists. Bana is a car collector, and essentially wanted to show off his own Ford GT Falcon Coupe, nicknamed The Beast. The film is all about his relationship to this car, a relationship that goes back 25 years. This is vehicle love laid bare. Also in the film are other famous vehicle fetishists and car collectors Jay Leno and Dr. Phil. Bana rebuilt that car three times. That takes some serious, serious devotion. And adoration.
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Bellflower (2011)
Bellflower is actually a damning fantasy of the slightly grown adolescent, alcoholic mindset, and the rampant hallucinatory hatred of women that can be the result of immature fantasy and severe head injuries. The characters in the film are all bitter, mean, violent, awful, and often misogynist. But just as important as the people is Mother Medusa, a souped up car that can shoot flames 40 feet into the air. The car was built by hand by the filmmakers, and the film was essentially structured entirely around it. Mother Medusa, it turns out, was a prep vehicle just in case the movie Mad Max came true. What kind of person would build a flame-spewing supercar just in case the movie Mad Max came true? Bellflower doesn't paint a rosy picture of that person.
