From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Christine released in 1983.
Starring:
Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul
Directed by:
John Carpenter
Genre:
Horror, Thriller
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
R
Budget:
$9,700,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.7
The Synopsis is:
A murderous sentient car possesses a boy and terrorizes his enemies.
Story:
Believe it or not, the concept of killer or possessed vehicles is not a novel idea and has been used as the topic for many books, films, and TV episodes.
- "Killdozer!", 1944 science fiction novella written by Theodore Sturgeon
- "Sally", a 1953 short story by Isaac Asimov
- "You Drive", a 1964 episode of the original The Twilight Zone series
- My Mother the Car, the 1965-6 sitcom about a spirit-possessed (but well-meaning) car
- The Love Bug, motion picture (1968) and its numerous sequels and spinoffs about Herbie the benevolent sentient Volkswagen
- Steven Spielberg's 1971 TV movie cult-classic Duel (1971).
- The Car 1977 horror film
In fact, I feel as if the film has a lot of themes from The Car 1977, of being a very unique car that is pure evil and morbidly vengeful. However, I do believe this was purely accidental.
American author Stephen King first came up with the short story, "Trucks" in 1973 that eventually turned into a movie written and directed by him called Maximum Overdrive in 1986.
In 1982 he had another story concept about a haunted car that he didn’t even get published before Hollywood grabbed the rights to make it into a film, Christine. King chose the name Christine while he was filming Creepshow in Pittsburgh with George and Christine Romero. He also chose to have the car as a 1958 Plymouth Fury because it was what he called a "forgotten car."
A 1958 Plymouth Fury turns up in a few other King novels:
It - Henry Bowers' father’s car
11.22.63 a car like Christine makes a number of appearances
The Stand - Stu Redman and Tom Cullen find the car abandoned, with a key bearing the initials AC inside.
John Carpenter was dancing around the possibility of adapting another Stephen King novel, "Firestarter" that was eventually released in 1984 and directed by Mark L. Lester. Instead he struck a deal to direct Christine. Bill Phillips was brought in to write the screenplay after, at first laughing at the concept, but then changing his mind halfway through reading the book.
The idea of a possessed or sentient car is a hilariously odd concept, but the interpersonal relationships between the human characters is really what makes the story intriguing in both the movie and the book.
So just to give you a back story on one of the biggest changes from the book to the screen was that in the book, Christine was an average car that was owned by a man by the name of Roland LeBay. He sold the car to Arnie Cunningham and died soon after. Roland’s spirit possessed the car and Arnie, using the two to kill anyone who appears to be an enemy.
On the other hand, the film makes it clear from the beginning that Christine is sentient and was born, “Bad to the Bone”, as we hear the song by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. There is no explanation, but she is just the way she is and looking for an owner that will love her, while playing the song “Not Fade Away” performed by Buddy Holly.
I personally love both takes from the film and the book, but I do prefer the idea of Christine, being the main character in her own movie. To me, that just makes more sense.
In the book, Christine is a tool for LeBay’s murderous intentions and that seems to really work for the 500 - 700 page novel depending on the published version you have where you can slowly build up the story.
One thing I appreciate about the story in the film is how there is never a dull moment because it is full of suspense for the audience. At least to me there is, and it’s interesting how characters that are not so nice can be dare I say surprisingly likable.
The dialogue was very succinct and even though there was a lot of exposition, it wasn’t overbearing or even noticeable in many scenes. It allowed the characters to really express their emotions and be eccentric. There was a natural flow to it all.
Some people may have a little bit of a cringe response to hearing so much profanity that is in the dialogue. I personally don’t mind it. Interestingly enough, because the film was made before the PG-13 movie rating was established, the project did not have enough gory violence to get an R rating to meet the appropriate audience, thus profanity was added to the dialogue.
Pacing:
At an hour and 50 minutes, it really goes by pretty fast for me. The tension throughout the film kept me interested, wondering what would happen next.
Challenge:
The main challenge in this movie is the titular character, the car Christine. Ah, Christine, Christine, Christine. She is a beautiful car. I don’t know how to drive, and I’ve never owned a car, never plan to either, but I just love old antique cars like Christine. I guess I have a love for the vehicles in general, but antiques are usually cars that have history behind them and it takes a lot of love to keep them going.
In spite of being gorgeous, as I told you before, Christine was just evil right out the gate at the assembly line. This is where Christine slams her hood on an inspector's hand. Then she proceeds to kill another inspector who accidently lets his cigar ashes fall on her seat. Disrespecting Christine is a no, no! An offense like that is punishable by death!
Roland LeBay never appears in the film, but Roland’s brother, George LaBay is and has been safe keeping Christine after his brother’s death six weeks earlier and recounts the many deaths in the car, which includes Roland, Roland’s wife and young daughter. Of course none of this was mentioned when Arnie Cunningham bought her.
When Arnie buys Christine, she is in pretty bad shape and the reason for that is that is more revealed in the book than the film. When Roland died, she had no one to love her and she let herself go. Isn't that interesting. Once Arnie fixes her up for the first time, putting in time, love and care, he bonds with her and from then on she keeps healing damages she endures on her own.
At one point, when the car has been trashed by jealous bullies, he gives her a little pep talk and he says, “Show me” and she proceeds to show her love for him by healing herself. It’s as if she is looking pretty for him.
There are a host of many antagonists in the film, but I struggled to figure out where to put Arnie, because in the beginning of the film we focus on life from Arnie’s perspective and it’s pretty sad. He’s a sweet young boy doing the best he can in school and does what his parents tell him. Unfortunately, he’s facing life threatening bullying from a repeatedly held back student, Buddy Repperton and his gang of classmates. Seriously, I know that teen movies often featured adults, but this guy looks 30. At one point Buddy actually pulls out a knife in the classroom.
I went to school with kids like Buddy and you pray, you pray every single day that they don’t notice you. So this really struck a chord with me.
Arnie also has the misfortune of being born to parents, who love him and care about him, but they don’t know how to support him.
Much of his problems with his parents is from his mother, who is extremely controlling and uptight. She means well, but she only sees him as a boy for her to mold and not the man he wants to be. He feels smothered by her and can’t get away soon enough.
What really pushes him over the edge is that she didn’t want Arnie to park Christine in the driveway of the house as not to tarnish her reputation. It’s a simple thing but Arnie has no recourse but to house Christine at Darnell’s Body Shop. And in turn this leads to a murderous result.
I mean, we are dealing with Christine so things were going to turn murderous anyway, but doing this really hurried things along.
Anytime we see Arnie go home to his parents, it’s a dumpster fire of screaming and yelling. It’s so plain to see that they have lost his trust and it’s so easy to see why he finds solace in Christine in the first place. He says to Dennis that he finally found something that is uglier than he is and he knows he can fix her up. To me that statement just broke my heart, because you know this reflects how he has been treated all of his life.
I just remembered having conflicting emotions while watching the film because I sided with Arnie as he began to get more confident and stand up for himself. I was actually rooting for him at one point. There are also moments where you see him struggle with who he is turning into and the real Arnie trying to hold on to his girlfriend Leigh. It’s sad to watch, but he is trying to hold on to himself.
What also pushes him further off the deep end is when the bullies sneak into Darnell’s and trash Christine in a heartless act. If you are a car lover, this is so hard to watch.
Symbolically, the visual of seeing Christine completely destroyed represents the destruction of Arnie’s innocence. The hope of doing things the way the world suggests doesn’t work for Arnie, and he even says to Christine, “They can’t hurt us anymore.”
He slowly begins to realize that the car is alive and responding to him like a lover. While everyone around him fails him in some way or another, blatantly or subtly, Christine is the only thing he feels he can absolutely count on. It becomes Arnie and Christine against the world.
One of the scenes that stands out in my mind is when Arnie faces off with his parents and they offer to buy him another car as an insult to injury. There is an uncomfortable moment between him and his father, wherein they know that Arnie is gone. The man that is staying in their home is not their son. It’s terrifying.
During the film, we have the horrific circumstance of seeing Christine pick off the bullies one by one in some of the most elaborate ways a car could do such a thing.
Moochie is one of the bullies that is singled out in particular. We don’t get this information from the film, but from deleted footage, that Moochie is responsible for defecating on the dashboard while they thrashed Christine. So his murder in the film is a special vendetta for Christine. This time, it’s personal…
His murder tells you a lot about her personality. She is determined to have her revenge at the detriment of her own body. Moochie is trapped in a corner, but she is too big to fit. Christine doesn't care about logistics. She wrecks herself just to get him. She’s one tough cookie.
The Stephen King movie and the book, Carrie also had the same theme of horrible bully’s mercilessly going after a young teenager and getting a rather cruel and murderous dose of revenge.
It’s quite shocking and due to the fact that these bullies are so rotten, when Arnie hears of their demise, he is unfazed leading the audience to speculate if he was the driver during the murders.
It is only when Christine drives back to her parking spot that we realize that Arnie is not responsible for those initial deaths.
We know Christine was out for revenge, but there is a sense that she kills without much provocation because she kills Darnell and she was ready to kill Leigh for slapping the car seat. If you so much as graze this car or give her a dirty, she will run you over. It’s murder death kill time! She does not play.
Unfortunately, Arnie’s transformation is growing more into a psychopathological killer, when he realizes that Christine is murdering his enemies for him and was eventually willing to kill Leigh and his best friend Dennis by the end.
Empathy:
The empathy in this film is the weakest link in the chain and that is because, in another story structure, Arnie would have been the protagonist, overcome Christine’s spell, and his feelings for Leigh Cabot would have saved the day.
No, no, no, no, no. This is Christine we’re talking about. She kills even the ones she loves, so Arnie never had a chance.
There is a third wheel in the story. No pun intended. Arnie’s best friend, Dennis the football jock who has his pick of any hot girl at school but he definitely has a thing for Leigh. But that is as spicy as he gets. There isn’t a whole lot of depth to his character. We barely even get to see his family life in the film and I appreciated that so the film could concentrate on Arnie and Christine.
He is the complete opposite of Arnie and yet he is Arnie’s best friend. At first, we’re not sure how deep the friendship goes, but ultimately we know that he really cares about Arnie a lot and looks out for him a lot in school, when it comes to confronting bullies. You could say that Arnie is his charity case, but it goes a little deeper than that. He loves him.
In the book, it seems more like Dennis isn’t as good of a friend by secretly having a relationship with Leigh, but I am so glad the film left that part out. You can see that there is an attraction there, but it is more that they get together to try to help Arnie.
The film sets up that Dennis dislikes Christine along with everyone else. In the film, it’s just a creepy feeling he has about the car, which seems odd because the car looks amazing once Arnie fixes her up. Along with Arnie, I can’t understand why everyone hates Christine.
However, in the book, many people who get in the car, think they smell a decaying body. That could really freak a person out, so I think that might have been a detail that could have helped explain everyone’s aversion to Christine in the film.
But it still works for me in a way because it appears that everyone’s concern comes from a source of jealousy of how much time Arnie is spending on Christine and he is slowly beginning to show signs of becoming more confident and independent. Arnie doesn’t need Dennis so much anymore.
But I think we have to give Dennis a lot of credit for having good instincts. He is genuinely concerned for Arnie, because even with his new found confidence, there is a hint of cruelty and apathy in his language and demeanor. It’s a bit hard for him to see his friend change fundamentally for what seems like overnight. The sweet kid he used to know is suddenly gone. That has to be a big shock to experience. It’s heartbreaking when that happens. He is experiencing the loss of his friend.
This is when Dennis connects the dots that something odd is going on and Christine is behind it all. I enjoyed the way the film uncovers Dennis’ suspicions as he learns more and more about Christine’s past.
Dennis is quite passive with Arnie, but gets more aggressive by the end when he and Leigh concoct a plan to destroy Christine and save Arnie.
They succeed in stopping Christine, possibly temporarily, but sadly they fail to save Arnie.
“Some things can’t be helped. Some people can’t be helped.”
Technical:
It’s no shock that 15% of the budget was spent on procuring the cars for the film. Christine is the star of the film after all and it took 28 cars to achieve all of the stages that she appears in the film. Not all of the cars were Plymouth Furys, because of how rare the car was even in the 1980's.
The Fury was a sub-series of the Plymouth Belvedere from 1956 through 1958. It was mainly sold only as a sandstone white two-door hardtop with gold anodized aluminum trim in those days. That is why Christine is the only red car in the factory line up in the very beginning of the film.
The 1957 models were styled longer and wider than previous models, with large vertical tail fins, however, there were many technical problems with these cars since Chrysler rushed them to the public. This resulted in many problems with many of the car’s buttons and drive.
For the purpose of the film, many of the cars that appear in the film were actually Belvederes and Savoys. Only two of the 28 cars were left intact by the end of filming.
There were several cars set up for different duties throughout the film. They had special cars for beauty shots (and boy was she beautiful), they had ones for the moments when she was run down and disheveled, ones for when she needed to be a “hot rod” kind of car, and stunt cars as well.
Darnell's Body Shop was a pretty cool element to the story. The shop was shot in an old factory with half of the space set up to be Darnell’s and the other half was a real body shop for the production of cars used in the film. Isn’t that cool.
One of the coolest aspects of Christine’s rampages is that her windows were blacked out, making the audience wonder if Arnie was driving her, which I mentioned before. It also had a dual purpose, to hide the stunt driver as well. What a clever work around. I love that.
The only drawback was that the stunt drivers had to memorize their stunts because they couldn’t see very well through the dark windows at night.
I think that all of the scenes where Christine is repairing herself were pure genius and done practically.
They achieved this by creating plastic versions of parts of the car that they wanted to film and in some cases they used actual stunt car parts. They then attached hydraulic pumps with cables inside of them, filming them as it sucked the sections into deflated forms. The footage was then reversed, making it look like the car was renewing itself. Again, genius!
One staple of the film that I really enjoyed was Christine’s blaring headlights used as a means of communication in a way. Christine is talking to us through her headlights, letting us know when she’s mad, or just ready to put her supernatural skills to use! Amazing!
They installed airplane landing lights on select cars for that dramatic effect.
The cinematography was indeed a special piece to the film as we get to see Christine in all of her glory. I also loved how the film captured the interior shots of Christine, making her look so massive and haunting inside.
The minimal score was a collaboration with John Carpenter and Alan Howarth. When Christine’s headlights blare, there is a sound that is so riveting, that it sounds, again, like Christine is talking to us in her supernatural language. A smile creeps on my face and we know something crazy is about to go down that is going to blow your mind.
Now to the soundtrack. This soundtrack is a mix of Rock N’ Roll music from the 1950’s to the 1980’s and the way it is used in the film is yet another way for the audience to know what Christine is thinking. It’s a technique that was also used for the character of Bumble Bee in the Transformer movie franchise.
The music deviates to tell us what other characters are thinking in a few other scenes as well.
It follows the book’s use of music in a way. The book uses music to describe the themes of certain segments to its readers.
Music used in the soundtrack includes:
Bad To The Bone performed by George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Beast Of Burden performed by The Rolling Stones
Bony Moronie performed by Larry E Wiliams
Come On, Let's Go performed by Ritchie Valens
Harlem Nocturne performed by The Viscounts
I Wonder Why performed by Dion DiMucci (as Dion) & The Belmonts
Keep A-Knockin' performed by Little Richard
Little Bitty Pretty One performed by Thurston Harris
Not Fade Away performed by Buddy Holly
Pledging My Love performed by Johnny Ace
Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay performed by Danny and the Juniors
Runaway performed by Bonnie Raitt
The Name Of The Game performed by ABBA
We Belong Together performed by Robert & Johnny
Performances:
Initially, the idea was to get Scott Baio to play Arnie Cunningham and Brooke Shields for Leigh Cabot since they were ridiculously famous actors that could play teens. The filmmakers thought casting unknowns would have been a better choice. They could then spend more money on the special effects. John Cusack and Kevin Bacon were hopefuls for the part of Arnie, but in the end it was given to Keith Gordon who knocked it out of the ball park. There were so many incredible features to his performance.
His body language at the start of the film is so minimized, shrunken and meek. His eyes are like puppy dog eyes. You feel so sad for him. And then seeing his excitement for Christine in the very beginning is so adorable.
When Arnie transforms, Keith’s shoulders lean back, his chin is up and his eyes are either vacant or piercing right into your soul. It’s terrifying. One cool aspect of that transformation is that Keith worked with the costume designer to give Arnie a 1950’s look. It’s also done subtly because it was a lot of 1950’s inspiration in the 1980’s.
Keith’s interaction with Christine really makes this love story believable. He said that he imagined that Christine was a real woman. His performance during the scene where he finds Christine totalled, is so powerfully heartbreaking, I wished I could reach into the screen and give him a hug. And when he snaps on Leigh, it’s way too far, but he still manages to play Arnie as someone who has got his back pushed against a wall.
I have heard some critiques that Keith may have been a little over the top with his performance. But I don't think so at all because it doesn’t betray the story. Crazy doesn’t have a top! I enjoyed it so much and I think, besides Christine, his animated performance is one of the biggest highlights in the film.
Newcomer Alexandra Paul plays Leigh Cabot and I think she did well having this as her third onscreen role. What really worked for her character was that she had very expressive eyes, which were used for the poster. She had the right look for posing and looking scared. I loved her in this.
She is actually a twin and there is a hilarious picture of her twin in a bulldozer with John Carpenter looking at her with skepticism. He said, "It was like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)" and Alexandra was a pod person."
There are so many amazing performances but one in particular for me was that of Robert Prosky who played Darnell. Robert asked the screen writer if he could get more dialogue to round out his character on screen. Darnell’s dialogue from the novel was used and Robert ran with it playing Darnell as a hard nose crotchety and sleazy hometown business man with a little teeny tiny bit of a heart.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is when he meets Arnie and Dennis. He’s giving them a hard time and Dennis gives him the middle finger behind his back. There is just something about how he’s so mean, but still has some of the best lines in the film. It’s his delivery. It was raw and detestable. So brilliant. What an actor!
Wish List:
In the film, there is a concentration of scenes documenting Christine’s odometer running backwards and then ends at zero. It was meant to infer that she was being reborn. I would have loved to know why and how. You could say that it was Arnie’s love, but by the end, she’s still counting down.
I would have loved to get an explanation as to why Arnie was transforming and how Christine was doing it. In the book he was being possessed by Roland LeBay, but the film never explained that or connected the two in that capacity. I suppose that was the main disadvantage of not introducing Roland as an actual character in the film and not just regarded as the former owner of the car. Another little detail that we didn’t get from the film was that Roland’s name rearranged is Arnold, Arnies formal name.
In Arnie’s transformation, he ditches his glasses. I would have loved an explanation for that. Again is it Christine? Is she able to change the physiology of her owners?
I don’t know if there was any connection to this, but the guy who works at the factory in Detroit in 1957 that finds the dead man in Christine’s drivers seat, looks just like a younger version of Darnell. I always wondered if that was on purpose. Was that Darnell?
That’s just a question more than a wish, but I also wish there was more of a reason why Darnell had to die in Christine’s eyes. The murder left me feeling very sad that Darnell died and it felt a little obscure.
Yes, he was a witness to see her drive in after her murder spree and he was mean to Arnie, but I really would have appreciated a better reason. In the book, Darnell is her target after snitching on her to the cops.
I also wished that there was a bit more explanation about George LeBay. He’s all too happy to sell Christine to another owner, knowing that she is a murderous car. I get the idea that he wants to get rid of her. What I have trouble with, is that he seems to be a fan of Christine’s. It would have been nice to get a line or two of him just saying something like, “she’s your problem now.” Or maybe, he’s the ghost of Roland LeBay, pretending to be his brother. That’s kind of a cool idea. I just want a motive for the character doing what he’s doing in the film, that’s all. He’s still one of the most intriguing characters in the film.
Enjoyment:
Fans of both Stephen King and John Carpenter felt that the film didn’t live up to their expectations. But the film did ok critically and at the box office.
Over the years, Christine has gone down in history as one of the most famous cars in cinema, right alongside the DeLorean, Ecto-1, and the Bat Mobile. The Carlisle Chrysler Nationals gives out an award every year to the best Christine look-a-like.
I have to say that when I first saw this film it really intrigued me because it was not just a typical slasher horror film. The relationship between Arnie and Christine is so touching for me and I just found myself relating to Arnie so much. When I was a little nerd back in the day and I had quite a hard time adjusting to the world around me too dealing with bullies in school and sometimes workplaces as an adult. Luckily I never fell in love with an evil sentient car!
It’s so interesting to see how movies can take you back to a certain time in your life. I have to totally admit that my nostalgia goggles are on pretty thick. But even seeing the film today and seeing it from an adult point of view, I had more compassion for the parents and the horror they were going through seeing their son vanish in front of their eyes. I have even more compassion for Dennis, who lost his friend and Leigh trying so hard to make sense of a doomed relationship.
The film is wildly entertaining, filled with so many great actors portraying unique and colorful characters in this tragic love story, between a boy and his murderous car!
My Rating:
9.1
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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