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John Carpenter’s Christine
Arnie Cunningham is a typical high school nerd until he buys Christine, a run-down 1958 Plymouth Fury. Arnie learns that Christine has a thing for him and devotes his time to restoring her to mint condition. However, soon Arnie begins to change and becomes disconnected with reality and his friends. Arnie's girlfriend Leigh and best friend Dennis find out that Christine's previous owner cared about nothing else when he bought her and find out that Arnie is becoming just like him. The only way they can bring Arnie back to reality is to destroy Christine, but Arnie and Christine are ready to destroy them first and anyone else who gets in their way.
John Carpenter’s Christine, released in 1983, marks a change in tone for the horror director. After the success of Halloween and Escape from New York, Carpenter was disheartened by the lack of it for his next project, The Thing. As that film fared poorly at the box office when compared to its predecessors, he was naturally disillusioned with Hollywood and sought to film something that would be more of a guaranteed hit. At this point, the most prolific horror author of the day was Stephen King, who’s numerous best-selling books had already served as the basis for several feature films. Carpenter chose King’s Christine, a novel about a killer car, as his follow-up to The Thing and set about making a film that would prove both profitable and critically acclaimed. While he certainly achieved the former (the film made over double its budget) the latter, at least initially, was a little harder to come by. Critics praised the film for its adherence to the source material but argue that the overall concept was a little hard to swallow. Um, yeah, of course it is, it’s a movie about a car that kills people! Once you get past this small issue, you’ll realize (like a lot of critics did later on) that Christine is an excellent thrill-ride with a powerhouse lead performance and more horsepower than pretty much every other killer car feature combined. It may not be as beloved as some of Carpenter’s other classics, but Christine is a damn good horror film and further evidence that anything can work when in the hands of a true master.
"Now that's my kind of girl."
Directed by John Carpenter and written by Bill Phillips, the film was clearly designed to capitalize on both King’s and Carpenter’s success in the horror genre at the time. Unlike Kubrick’s attempts to re-imagine King’s The Shining in order to turn it into HIS film, Carpenter chose to stick with the original story closely yet still put his own personal stamp on things. The end result is a movie that plays out a lot like the novel on which it was based, which would definitely make King happy, while still feeling like any other John Carpenter film of the time. First and foremost, it’s got that classic John Carpenter score (written along with Alan Howarth) that we’ve all come to know and love. The music here is typically minimal, but perfectly frames the shots that Carpenter comes up with throughout, particularly in a harrowing chase scene in the second act. Carpenter’s direction can also be considered minimal here, though to be fair the story basically requires it to work properly. Outside of a couple of big moments (the gas station explosion, the car repairing itself) everything else here is pretty damn tight, in particular Buddy Repperton’s demise and a scene where Leigh is choking inside the car while Arnie cannot seem to open the door to save her. Meanwhile, the screenplay is solid, throwing in just enough teen angst to give the lead character a sense of purpose while sticking quite close to the original story. There’s one major change (in King’s novel the car is possessed, here it is evil from “birthâ€) but that also works to give the film an air of the unknown; why is this car evil, what caused it to be that way and how does it have a hold over Arnie?
"A big time car for a big time dork."
Speaking of Arnie Cunningham, the actor that plays him here, Keith Gordon, is just off the charts, turning in the absolute standout performance of the film. Initially the biggest nerd you’d ever lay a pair of glasses on, his transformation into a full-on sociopath is brilliantly understated. It’s almost as if Arnie had actually always been this twisted individual, and it was the purchase of Christine that allowed his true self to come out. This is in direct contrast to the idea that the car itself was the cause of Arnie’s transformation; in my eyes this whole personality was just waiting to surface after having been repressed for so many years. The car may have been the catalyst, but it was always Arnie’s destiny to become who he did, and Gordon’s performance echoes this nicely. The supporting cast is quite strong here as well, with the bullies played by William Ostrander (Buddy Repperton) and Malcolm Danare (Moochie) being the standouts. There’s also an appearance from Stu Charno (Ted in Friday the 13th Part 2) as well as greats such as Harry Dean Stanton (Repo Man), Robert Prosky (Thief) and Roberts Blossom (Escape from Alcatraz). Christine Belford gives a very convincing performance as Arnie’s mother, first domineering and then emotionally distraught at the person her son has become, while John Stockwell and Alexandra Paul do decent work as Arnie’s friend and girlfriend respectively.
"Do you really think a dude named Moochie is going to outrun a car?"
Christine IS a story about a killer car, but that’s just the framework for the real story, which is that of the dark descent into madness that Arnie suffers. It’s not hard to see why he does turn into a sociopath though; I mean this guy’s entire life up until the point that he buys the car totally sucks. His parents won’t let him do anything on his own, he has no girlfriend prospects because he’s a total dweeb and he can’t even eat his lunch because Buddy Repperton sticks a switchblade through it. In fact, it’s a wonder he even man’s up enough to buy Christine in the first place, though to me it’s just the first sign of the real Arnie showing up. Meanwhile, after the bullies in the film destroy his beloved Christine, Arnie goes right off the deep end and again, can you really blame him? However, the film becomes ambiguous here, as you’re never quite sure whether Arnie is driving Christine during her acts of vengeance on these individuals. Sure he’s driving her at the end during the final showdown but that’s more to give the film a resolute ending than anything else. Every other time, we’re not quite sure who’s responsible, the car, Arnie, or perhaps both since at this point they’re one and the same. This duality between man and machine is at the heart of Christine and the reason it succeeds where so many other killer car features fail. After all, when you don’t know who the real killer is, everything is that much scarier and Christine drives this point home to perfection. 7.5/10.
"Coming up tomorrow...Alice Cooper?"
