Line #25 Film/TheCarsThatAteParis


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d3e38389f449b83ddc30f10c6d64074e50f2bfba.jpg]]
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3	''The Cars That Ate Paris'' (also known as ''The Cars That Eat People'') is a 1974 MediaNotes/AustralianNewWave film that marked the directorial debut of Creator/PeterWeir.
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5	The Paris of the title is a tiny town in the New South Wales countryside (so not ''[[UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} that]]'' UsefulNotes/{{Paris}}). It's surrounded by treacherous roads that are prone to car accidents. The Waldo brothers become a victim of one of these accidents. George dies, but Arthur (Terry Camilleri) survives. After recovering in the local hospital, he's persuaded to stay in town by Mayor Kelly (John Meillon). But it becomes apparent that beneath the placid exterior of Paris lies a harsh truth: the car accidents are caused intentionally by the town's residents, and they make their livings by scavenging the parts.
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7	----
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9	!!The Tropes that Ate Paris:
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11	* {{Affably Evil}}:
12	** The Mayor is a pleasant, fatherly man, who just happens to endorse murder and thievery on the part of his subjects.
13	** Darryl, leader of the hoons, is a chipper and friendly chap until Arthur crosses him, and then he immediately gets nasty.
14	* {{The Alleged Car}}: The hoons' cars have components from many different models.
15	* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: The monstrous customised cars turn the local greasers into {{sociopath}}ic murderers.
16	* AxeCrazy: Charlie, one of the mayor's minions, seems completely deranged. He behaves in a manic and bestial manner, is obsessed with collecting Jaguar hood ornaments as trophies, and [[spoiler:murders the pastor purely for the hell of it]].
17	* AwfulWeddedLife: The Mayor and his wife don't appear to have a great marriage. He's very controlling, and it turns out she's infertile.
18	* BaitAndSwitchCredits: The opening scene parodies a cigarette commercial, but the couple in the sports car are soon run off the road and killed.
19	* BlackComedy: The scheme that the town of Paris runs on is very ghastly and morbid, but the film is more breezy and colorful than dark.
20	* {{Cool Car}}: The Mayor's red 1958 Desoto Firesweep, the customised Holden FJ, and the VW Beetle [[SpikesOfVillainy covered in a forest of metal spikes]].
21	* CreepyCemetery: The Paris cemetery is full of white crosses marking the burial spots of car accident victims.
22	* {{Desert Punk}}: Some of the young hoons have chains and spikes on their leather jackets.
23	* DisproportionateRetribution: In retribution for destroying one of their demolition derby cars, the hoons wage a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to demolish the entire town, the place where they also live.
24	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Yes, the townspeople cause crashes, steal, kill and lobotomize people. But, the Mayor is visibly disturbed and angry when he finds that one of the townspeople had literally blown off the head of the visiting Pastor. While there's some PragmaticEvil involved, as shooting a regular visitor in broad daylight is harder to explain than a stranger at night, the Mayor still calls the perpetrator "irreligious".
25	* {{Evil Vs Evil}}: The town elders and the young {{Greaser Delinquents}}.
26	* FacelessGoons: The hoons tend to wear bandanas over their faces to make them less human. It's treated as something of a reveal that Darryl is one of hoons.
27	* {{The Igor}}: The day job of one of the punks.
28	* {{Gaslighting}}: When Arthur keeps mentioning that he saw lights before the crash, the Mayor assures him that it's just a delusion caused by the physical and mental stress of the accident. In fact, [[BlindedByTheLight using lights to blind victims]] is one of the Parisians' main methods to cause accidents, so the Mayor is trying to avoid a HeKnowsTooMuch situation with Arthur.
29	* GreaserDelinquents: The hoons are an Australian version. They cover themselves in car ornaments, cobble together cars from spare parts, paint them wild colors, and spend their days crashing into each other and doing stunts. The town is sharply divided between the hoons and the common citizens.
30	* TheJoyOfX: The title is a variant of {{The Noun Who Verbed}}.
31	* LandDownUnder: A foreshadowing of the SavageSouth trope now associated with ''Film/MadMax''.
32	* {{Lobotomy}}: The village doctor's "cure" for motorists who survive the car crash.
33	* {{Mad Scientist}}: FrontierDoctor Midland enjoys experimenting on lobotomised patients.
34	* {{Mooks}}: The Mayor's henchmen are road workers who wear orange hi-visibility jackets.
35	* MrsRobinson: The mayor's wife seems to have taken a shine to Arthur, who is implied to be significantly younger than him. The mayor seems to believe she thinks of him like a son, but it ultimately it's left unresolved.
36	* NeverTrustATitle: The title might imply that it's a campy AttackOfTheKillerWhatever movie about {{Sentient Vehicle}}s, but it's really a BlackComedy about a remote town, and the "ate" part is more about the conscience of the townspeople than anything else.
37	* {{The Patriarch}}: The Mayor has a wife and two children, and adopts Arthur as his son.
38	* RaisedByNatives: The Mayor's two daughters are actually orphans whose parents were killed in a car accident.
39	* {{Repressive But Efficient}}: The Mayor's authoritarian regime in Paris.
40	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In retribution for the mayor burning one of their cars, the hoons all assemble and demolish the town, killing many of its inhabitants.
41	* SalvagePirates: The townsfolk make a living by causing car accidents and then scavenging the parts from the wrecks.
42	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After the local greasers' rampage, the villagers pack up what they can carry and leave.
43	* {{The Seventies}}: Although the town appears {{Two Decades Behind}} due to its remoteness.
44	* ShoutOut: The song played on the piano at the Mayor's party is "My Ding-A-Ling" by Music/ChuckBerry.
45	* SpikesOfVillainy: The film's most enduring legacy is the image of the Volkswagen Beetle customized with porcupine spikes. It features on the film poster and is homaged with the Buzzards in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''.
46	* StupidCrooks: The hoons' rampage quickly sputters out once the population realizes what's going on. Their [[TheAllegedCar demolition derby-style cars]] look fearsome but are very unreliable, quickly breaking down or getting stuck on debris, allowing the drivers to get attacked. [[spoiler:None of them survive]].
47	* TownWithADarkSecret: Not only do the Paris locals cause the accidents and plunder the remains, it appears to be their only means of sustenance. Their clothes and personal items have been scavenged from their victims, and it's even established that the town basically uses a barter economy based around trading plundered goods for services.
48	* {{Traffic Wardens}}: Arthur is given this unpopular job by the Mayor.

Context Film / TheCarsThatAteParis