In The Evil Dead, Ash spends much of the first film trapped in a cabin in the woods because, due to supernatural forces, the car won’t start and the bridge is out. There’s no phone signal, no help on the way. It’s only when he is the last one standing and he stops trying to leave and starts facing the nightmare head-on that the franchise truly begins. We’re not much different. When our “spiritual car” breaks down (or is sabotaged), our instinct is to call for a fix—read a new book, take another retreat, find a new teacher, download a different app.

 

By Kellie Schorr

 

Dharma in the Dark is a six-article series exploring how horror movie tropes and clichés can show us some life basics found in Buddhist teachings.

It always happens at the worst time.

The heroine is running through the dark, barefoot and bloodied, clutching the keys that mean salvation. She tumbles into the driver’s seat, gasping for breath, jams the key into the ignition and . . .

<click.>

No roar of power. Not even a sputter. Just that one, hollow sound. The engine won’t turn over. The monster is coming, the ax is shining, the storm is closing in. The car, her one way out, won’t start.

From When a Stranger Calls to Scream 4, and The Night of the Living Dead to Cujo, the “car won’t start” moment is one of horror’s most enduring tropes. It traps the character in the very place they long to escape. It amplifies helplessness, forces confrontation, and strips away the illusion of control. For all the technological wonders in the world, the car in a horror film has one sacred duty: to fail exactly when it’s needed most.

And when it does, something real happens. It’s effective because we recognize that feeling. Maybe not with blood on our hands and a killer in the rearview, but in our own quiet way we’ve been there. When everything we depend on suddenly isn’t there.

When the Engine Dies

In life, our “cars” are the systems and supports we believe will carry us safely through. Religion. Therapy. Meditation. The gym. The job. The partner. The plan. We fuel them with intention and polish them with hope. Then, one day, the light changes, and they stall.

You sit on the cushion, but your mind won’t stay put. You pray and feel nothing. You repeat your mantra, but it clinks around your skull like loose change. You do all the things that used to “work,” but they don’t anymore. You can’t get away from the pain, the grief, the anger, or the exhaustion you swore you had already handled. The car just won’t start.

That sudden silence is one of the most frightening experiences on the path. Especially if we’ve built our identity around being the kind of person who “trusts in our faith,” “has a practice” or “knows the way.” When the ignition won’t catch, our first impulse is usually the same as the horror hero’s—we turn the key harder. We chant louder, pray longer, meditate forever, hoping that one more try will get us running again.

The deeper lesson is this: the moment the car won’t start is not the failure of your practice. It’s the beginning of your journey.

Spiritual AAA Isn’t Coming

In The Evil Dead, Ash spends much of the first film trapped in a cabin in the woods because, due to supernatural forces, the car won’t start and the bridge is out. There’s no phone signal, no help on the way. It’s only when he is the last one standing and he stops trying to leave and starts facing the nightmare head-on that the franchise truly begins.

We’re not much different. When our “spiritual car” breaks down (or is sabotaged), our instinct is to call for a fix—read a new book, take another retreat, find a new teacher, download a different app. Surely someone out there can restart it. But spiritual practice isn’t a roadside assistance plan.

No one else can turn the key for you. No one else can teach you to sit with the quiet that follows when nothing external works. The car’s silence asks a brutal but liberating question: Do you trust your path, or only the results it gave you before?

The Battery of Belief

In the brilliant It Follows, the young protagonists try desperately to escape the slow, relentless monster pursuing them. They use every tool—cars, boats, even a swimming pool—but no matter how they run, the thing always catches up. The horror of the film isn’t speed. It’s inevitability.

Buddhism teaches the same thing in a gentler language: impermanence. Everything breaks down. Everything. Even the vehicles we’ve built to drive us toward enlightenment. Our techniques, our teachers, our tidy concepts of self all run out of gas eventually. The car’s battery dies not because we failed, but because that’s what batteries do.

When we reach that place where nothing “works,” it’s not the end of the journey. It’s an invitation to get out of the car and walk.

Walking the Road

There’s a scene in The Blair Witch Project when the trio finally admits they’re lost. They’ve circled the same landmarks for days. Their map is useless. The compass spins. Everything they thought would guide them has failed. That moment, raw and tearful, is the most honest part of the film. It’s the pivot between denial and awakening. The same moment lives in Buddhist practice. It’s the instant we stop trying to control the path and start being on it.

When meditation stops feeling serene and starts feeling pointless, that’s when you learn what meditation really is: staying anyway. When your mantra feels empty, that’s when you see the space between sound and silence.

When your prayers echo into nothing, that’s when you discover the kind of faith that doesn’t depend on feedback. That’s the road you walk when the car won’t start.

The Mechanics of Mind

Sometimes, the car fails because we ignored the warning signs. We treated our faith like a ride we could just jump into whenever life got hard, instead of something we maintain. We stopped checking the oil of awareness. We forgot to refill the coolant of compassion. We ran on fumes of inspiration until we sputtered to a stop.

And sometimes, it fails for no reason at all. The engine just dies. The causes and conditions of suffering arise and fade without explanation. It’s tempting to diagnose it—to assume you’re doing something wrong, or that karma is punishing you—but the truth is simpler: everything changes. Even the things that once saved you.

When that happens, breathe. Step out of the vehicle. Feel the ground under your feet. You’re not stranded. You’re standing exactly where you are. The car that won’t start isn’t our enemy. It’s the teacher we didn’t know we needed. It forces us to stop running long enough to see what’s been chasing us all along—our fear of stillness, our dependence on ease, our discomfort with being human.

Turning the Key

Eventually, every practitioner learns this: your faith or practice isn’t about never breaking down. It’s about knowing what to do when it happens.

Maybe the practice that once filled your heart with light now feels dull. That’s okay. Open the hood. Look with curiosity. Maybe you’ve outgrown the form, and it’s time to learn what powered it in the first place. Maybe you’ve been using your mantra as a magic spell instead of a mirror. Maybe the silence that feels like failure is the stillness you’ve been chasing all along.

When the car won’t start, don’t curse it. Sit in the driver’s seat. Feel the fear, the frustration, the fatigue. Let them be the sound of the rain on the roof, the score of this moment’s horror movie. Then, quietly, reach for the key again. You might not escape, but you can understand.

Sometimes it turns. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, you’re already home.

 

Authors note:  Horror can teach messages such things as living with grief (The Babadook, Hereditary, Don’t Look Now), dealing with family trauma (The Haunting of Hill House, The Witch,  The Invisible Man [2020]), the reality of systemic racism (Get Out, Us, Nope), the harm from fanatical devotion to religious certainty (The Mist, Heretic, The Wicker Man [1973]) or the horror women endure in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty (The Substance, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Death Becomes Her).

 

Is there a movie you want to talk about or you’d like an article about? Let me know at the Horror Hounds tab KellieSchorr.com

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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