'Killing Car' (1989) sputters in rather enigmatically at the tail end of the 80s, while initially appearing to be quite some distance removed from, Jean Rollin's elegiac visions of surrealistic Gothic wyrd, I still found this starkly nihilistic thriller to be anything but the dour DTV misfire so many have claimed it to be. At this point in time it is pretty clear that, Jean Rollin is having some severe problems securing adequate finances for his exquisite phantasmagorical masterpieces as, sadly, 'Killing Car' looks decidedly sparse even by penurious Eurocine standards, all that being said, hopefully forgiving its severe budgetary limitations, what remains is some gloriously escapist Euro-crime schlock, supercharged with its very own oblique set of deliciously screwball B-Movie archetypes and their delightfully shadowy intrigues! Like fellow genre iconoclast, Lucio Fulci, some of the esteemed director's latter day films are often dismissed, with all too many 'critics' unfairly damning them as being cheap, demonstratively below par affairs, whereas, quite to the contrary, I can still readily appreciate the credible artistry abounding in these idiosyncratic, albeit far lower budgeted productions!
Writer/director, Jean Rollin's knowingly pulpy, pistol-happy 'Killing Car' is enjoyably ripe with, Dashiell Hammett allusions as his gun-metal cool, raven-haired avenging angel, 'The Car Woman' (Tiki Tsang) draws us uncomfortably close to her deadly odyssey deep into, Jean Rollin's crepuscular Parisian underworld. The lack of glossy production value fortuitously lends murky verisimilitude to her vengeful undertakings and to, Rollin's great credit, the bravura director effectively maintains this glacial existential milieu throughout the movie, which in lesser hands might simply be just another grubby exercise is gratuitously blood-squibbing, B-Movie revenge, and yet it is more than that, since there is an oblique suggestion of a supernatural, almost mythical gravitas to the beguiling Tsang's unflinchingly brutal slaying of all those nefarious, cowardly dregs that wronged her so egregiously.
For me, the inimitable filmmaker's doomy, dream-logic romanticism remains largely intact in this gritty, grossly maligned movie and, Rollin's rampant predilection for encouraging delectably nubile ladies to spontaneously disrobe is resolutely unbowed in his skewed approach to Godard's sacrosanct 'Girl & a Gun' filmmaking maxim! And it would be greatly remiss not to mention the truly exemplary score by previous Rollin collaborator, Philippe Bréjean which sonorously adds some much-needed burnish to the film's unlovely, rough-hewn veneer. 'Killing Car' is not quite the risible car crash some might have you believe, and I'm certain all those especially broad-minded grindhouse fans shall find the admittedly bumpy ride a remarkably stimulating one!
