| “ | I'm evil... I'm so evil... | „ |
| ~ The Haunted Car's catchphrase |
| “ | I died in this car, Mitchell. And now it's your turn! <...> I was only fourteen. Only fourteen, Mitchell. <...> Only fourteen. Only fourteen. I took the car out for a drive. I crashed it, Mitchell. I died. I've haunted the car ever since, waiting...waiting for someone to join me, to keep me company. And now I've found you. <...> It won't hurt for long. And then we'll be together forever. | „ |
| ~ Becka, the ghost haunting the car, ranting to Mitchell about her intentions to murder him to have him accompany her in the Haunted Car. |
Becka Douglas, more known as the Haunted Car, is the main villain of the 21st Goosebumps Series 2000 story of the same name. She is a ghost of a teenager girl who haunts the car and desperately wishes to kill someone so that they'd accompany her as a fellow ghost in a car. She is also featured as one of the major antagonists in the 2015 Goosebumps film, serving as the personal vehicle of Slappy the Dummy.
Appearance[]
As a human/ghost[]
Back when she was alive, Becka Douglas was a blond girl with dark eyes that were noted to be catlike, an appearance she shared with her twin sister, Marissa Meddin. She was dressed in black clothes. As a ghost, her appearance was noted to be rotten and decayed, akin to a corpse, with rotting purple skin, eyes sunken deep into the eyesockets, visible red pulsating veins, broken nose, torn lips, no teeth, and with swollen green gums dripping with yellow slime.
As a car[]
The Haunted Car takes form of a blue Sports Corvette with a white leather interior. When displaying a paranormal behavior, the car can envelop itself in pulsating green ghostly light.
In the film, the Haunted Car takes an appearance of black 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III instead, adorned with a vanity plate that says "HAUNTED".
Personality[]
Back when she was alive, Becka was shown to be reckless, as she took her father's car on a joyride in spite of her young age. When confronting Mitchell, she proudly and maliciously refers to herself as evil while toying with Mitchell by sardonically asking him whether or not he enjoys riding with her, at the same time taking delight in terrorizing him and causing him and his friends harm. She takes such great relish in being evil that her involuntarily committing an act of good resulted in her reacting with horror and disbelief, ultimately resulting in her being exorcised for good.
Biography[]
Long before the events of the story, a 14-year-old Becka Douglas took her father's car on a joyride, but ended up in a car crash that resulted in her death. Devastated by her loss, her father, Mr. Douglas, desperately wished to get rid of the car, deciding to sell it away for a low price while begging for any potential buyer to get rid of the car as soon as possible. However, unbeknowest to him, Becka's ghost began to haunt the car, and at one point, she appeared before her twin sister Marissa, revealing her intentions to haunt the car until she gets her revenge for dying at such a young age.
The car was eventually sold to Moinian family, with Mitchell urging his father to buy it after their last car broke. However, the car ultimately proved itself to be much more suspicious than it seems to be, with Becka's ghost often maliciously whispering to Mitchell to get inside the car, displaying nigh-hypnotic properties as she tempted him to get inside, locking him up, trying to freeze him, his younger brother Todd, and his friends Allan and Steve by drastically lowering the temperature inside of the car, and even leaving a piece of paper that says "I'M EVIL" inside the glove compartment.
One day, the car successfully tempted Mitchell into entering it at night before sending him on a wild joyride, where Becka's ghost maliciously reveled in revealing herself as an evil ghost while taunting Mitchell about whether or not he enjoys the ride. After trying to get him killed by getting hit by an impending train, she stopped at the last minute before sending him back to his home, where Mitchell got grounded by his parents, who refused to believe his story about the ghost in a car trying to kill him.
After Mitchell's family left him to check on his cousin Ella, the ghost tempted Mitchell into getting inside of the car again, thus sending him on another joyride, which is when Becka revealed to Mitchell that she died at the age of 14 and intends to kill him so that he'll keep her company. Mitchell begged for Becka to take him back home, and she agreed, bragging that she can just as easily ram him into his house to kill him. However, once they came back, they've learned that the Moinians' house caught fire, and that, by taking him on a joyride, Becka ended up accidentally saving Mitchell's life. Outraged and horrified to learn that she ended up performing a good deed, Becka cried out that her mission had failed and was exorcised out of the car, thus putting an end to her threat for good.
Afterwards, after Mitchell confronted Marissa about the car, with her revealing her connection to Becka and her story, the now-no-longer-haunted car was revealed to be inoperable. When checked on by a mechanic, it was discovered that it lacked a car battery, thus revealing to Mitchell's parents that his story about the ghost in a car was not just a product of his imagination, thus giving him hope that his parents will be ready to believe him about Becka's ghost haunting the car.
In other media[]
Goosebumps movie[]
The Haunted Car appears in the movie as one of the major antagonists, serving as Slappy's personal vehicle. Due to Slappy's legs being too short to reach the pedals, the car drives on her own instead.
When released by Slappy, she assists him in rampaging across Madison, Delaware, providing him with means to throw around the burning manuscripts, releasing the monsters contained inside of the books. When Slappy prepares to launch an attack on Madison High School, he has the Haunted Car and the Lawn Gnomes burn down the remaining manuscripts, releasing all sorts of monsters from Goosebumps franchise into the real world.
While it's unknown what happened to her in the end of the movie, it's implied that the Haunted Car was sucked in with the rest of the monsters (barring Brent Green) into the newly-written Goosebumps book.
Trivia[]
- The Haunted Car's existence is a clear reference to Christine (minus the love angle).
External Links[]
- The Haunted Car on the Goosebumps Wiki
