Christine (1983)

It just wouldn’t feel like a Halloween Fifteen if I didn’t include a film adaptation of a Stephen King novel. As I’ve noted in the past, movies based on King’s literary works have a notoriously uneven track record. To me, 1983’s Christine is more a product of its director, John Carpenter, than it is its original author. I’m more familiar with Carpenter’s body of work and the screenplay he’s working from was written by Bill Phillips, not King.

In 1978, nerdy high school student Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) finds a derelict 1958 Plymouth Fury sitting outside an old man’s home with a “for sale” sign on it. Arnie’s best friend, Dennis (John Stockwell,) tries to talk him out of buying it but Arnie is mesmerized by the car. Arnie even offers the old man more money than he’s asking to buy it. The old man (Roberts Blossom) tells Arnie that the car was his brother’s and he named it Christine. The only reason it’s for sale is because his brother is “stone cold dead.” Arnie buys Christine and drives it home.

Arnie’s parents aren’t thrilled about his purchase, especially since he didn’t consult with them. They refuse to let Arnie keep Christine at their house. Arnie is forced to keep the car at a local garage owned by Darnell (Robert Prosky.) Darnell, who’s initially hesitant about Arnie’s presence in the garage, eventually offers him a job in exchange for the parts needed to help restore Christine.

Gradually, a transformation begins taking place. As Christine becomes more like her original self through Arnie’s work, Arnie becomes more confident and assertive. In fact, once Christine has been fully restored, Dennis is surprised to see Arnie is dating Leigh (Alexandra Paul.) Dennis, a star football player, had been unable to secure a date with her just a few weeks prior.

When Dennis is injured in a game, Arnie spends more time with Leigh. And, it appears that Christine gets jealous. To the point that Leigh begins choking on some food while the couple are at the drive-in. Christine locks Arnie out of the car so he can’t help her. Luckily, she survives. When she expresses concern that the choking incident was somehow the car’s fault, Arnie laughs it off. How could a car be a killer? It definitely can. And, it is. And it seems to be possessing Arnie too.

Objectively, as a horror movie, Christine isn’t very scary. It does delve into the the relationship between masculinity and cars, if you want to look at it that way. Can a man love his car more than a woman? What happens if that love is reciprocated in a rather sadistic way? The film does feature some excellent action sequences; particularly in the latter half of the movie.

But what makes Christine unique is that it’s multifaceted enough to be interesting to different groups of people. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a movie about friendship. And, it’s also a revenge story. While not all of these angles may be strong enough to stand on their own, they add enough flavor to make this more than just a “killer car” movie.

Keith Gordon and John Stockwell both do an excellent job portraying the friendship between Arnie and Dennis. Gordon, in particular, makes the transition from ugly duckling to overconfident jerk believable. Where the film falters a bit is the lack of insight into how that transformation takes place. We see that working on Christine affects Arnie, but we don’t see how Arnie reacts to the change. Or if he even notices.

While it might be tempting to underestimate Christine as just a movie about a car that drives around and kills people, if you pop the hood and give it a once over, it’s actually quite a bit more refined than that. Otherwise, it’d just be The Car.