REVIEW: Christine (1983)

"She smiled at me. I want to have deep, meaningful sex with her."

With that nugget of wisdom, I present the bastard child of Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Detroit, 1983's opus of vehicular terror, Christine.

Christine's got a bad rap. Admit it, you chuckled the first time you heard about this movie -- a haunted car? A possessed Plymouth? At least that's the reaction that I got when I mentioned that I had rented it. Let me get it out of the way now: a possessed, evil car is silly. But it's no stupider than a haunted house when you really think about it, so as a society we'll have to adjust our standards: all hauntings are equally stupid. I digress.

Christine is, in my mind, first and foremost a John Carpenter picture and a Stephen King adaptation second. I'm not among the biggest King fans of the world -- not that I've got anything against him, but I never took to his writing -- so his participation in the movie is more or less unimportant to me. According to our friends at the IMDB, King was such hot stuff back in '82 that the movie was in pre-production before the book was actually published; also, I hear that the movie takes some unfaithful diversions from the source material, but then again, I don't care. The movie works on its own merits, thanks to one of my all-time genre favorites, John Carpenter.

John Carpenter is primarily known for writing/directing/scoring Halloween, but what people outside the genre don't realize is how unstoppably awesome he was back in the earlier days of his career: Halloween, Starman, Prince of Darkness, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York, The Fog... all of them horror or sci-fi greats, and all of them certifiable cult hits (argue with me and I'll punch you). From there, something happened, and the magic stopped; he starting turning out dreck. As far as I can remember, he went downhill pretty suddenly back in the late eighties, right after They Live came out -- although it might be right before he did They Live. I change my mind about that movie every time I see it. Fortunately for us, Christine was a baby from the good ol' days, and it shows.

Christine opens with the sound of a growling engine over the credits rolling in the standard John Carpenter font. (Speaking of which, how many other directors have their own font? If anyone can find it for download, let me know.) We follow the trip down the factory line for the 1958 Plymouth Fury, which doesn't end well for the worker that accidentally ashes his cigar on Christine's fine leather seats. This is about as much of an origin as we're going for the murderous car, an artistic detail which you can either love or hate. On one hand, maybe the car seems more evil because it really doesn't have motivation; it's just built evil. The nuts and bolts were bad. On the other hand, it's got no backstory whatsoever that we can make sense of, and for some people the idea of an evil semi-sentient automobile might sound stupid unless there's a ghost or something. Personally, this part doesn't bother me, because I believe most things that make it out of Detroit are determined to destroy the world. (Actually, this isn't entirely unlike Carpenter's Michael Myers character from Halloween, who was apparently just born evil, if you ignore the five or six sequels.)

Jumping forward to 1978, teen geek Arnie Cunningham gets bullied during the lunch period by the knife-wielding Buddy Repperton, who does his most menacing Vinnie Barbarino impression before he gets expelled for showcasing his knife skillz. Luckily, Arnie's pal Dennis comes to the rescue in the nick of time, and it's while they're driving home that afternoon that Arnie spots the trashed Christine sitting by her lonesome in someone's backyard. It's love at first sight, and since Arnie isn't troubled by the super-cheap asking price, it's not long before he gets his baby into tip-top shape -- seemingly overnight. There's also a new girl in school, Leigh (Alexandra Paul of "Baywatch" fame), that both Dennis and Arnie have their eyes on.

All would be well, except that Arnie starts to change. He gets a sudden influx of machismo and overconfidence -- even enough to win the heart of Leigh, and to earn the continued ire of Repperton and his gang. In retaliation for the expulsion, Buddy decides to make Christine a little prettier by smashing her to pieces with mallets. One of the guys in the gang (including Bill Murray's test subject from the beginning of Ghostbusters) even shits on her dashboard. What's a possessed car to do? Why, satanically fix itself and kill 'em all, of course!

That's pretty much the entire movie. Arnie goes more and more insane about Christine, Leigh and Dennis get worried, and the car starts killing the gang. There's also a nice small role for Harry Dean Stanton as the cop investigating the murders, and Robert Prosky as the cantankerous owner of Darnell's Garage. It's really a simple plot, overall, but it's bolstered by strong performances from the leads who really sell their characters. I'd say that John Stockwell (who later went on to be a director) makes Dennis one of the most likable horror movie characters that I can remember (don't know if that says much), and Keith Gordon's Arnie is a little over-the-top but still believable as he sinks further into murderous obsession.

Also of note is how confident the direction and camerawork is. Carpenter makes the most out of every inch of the screen, and even goes all-out with lens flare that makes Christine look even more frightening -- the glare stretches so far across the screen that it's almost as if Christine's got her arms stretched out to grab you with. Every movement of the camera is precise and measured, and even the sound effects are top-notch; this movie is tightly edited, and is pretty much the opposite of the sloppy production that mars most horror films, especially the horror films of the early eighties. And I need to throw in a double-especially on account of the track record for Stephen King adaptations. It's probably clear by now that I'm a big admirer, even though it's not the best horror film I've ever seen. Then again, I just sat through Amityville II: The Possession, so my judgment is skewed enough to make me rethink my opinion on Batman & Robin.

I'm no car nut, but I think the movie is a darn good entry into the genre, and I recommend it. Especially for those of you that like to see classic cars get destroyed over and over and over again. You know who you are.