Christine [reviewed by Lackey]

John Carpenter, 1983 (109 min.)
My rating:
IMDB

John Carpenter gives us the ’50s via the ’70s via the ’80s in this excellent Stephen King adaptation.

* * *

Premise

High-school outcast Arnie Cunningham sees his fortunes change when he buys—and falls in love with—a 1958 Plymouth Fury named “Christine.” But those who cross him soon find out that Christine has a mind of her own, and can be deadly when it comes to protecting Arnie.

Critique

In 1983, John Carpenter directed an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Christine, marking the end of what I tend to think of as the Golden Age of King horror movies. I’ve always felt that the period from 1976 to 1983 was the most qualitatively consistent as far as King adaptations go—starting with Carrie, and also including Creepshow, The Dead Zone, and the ever-controversial Shining. (It’s probably not a coincidence that Christine is the last King adaptation to feature the director’s name, not King’s, as part of the title: Christine is “properly” styled John Carpenter’s Christine. Compare to Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive, and—most hilariously—Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man.)

Carpenter proves himself more than capable for the task at hand. Having just come off a pair of collaborations with Kurt Russell (the dystopian-future western Escape from New York and the remake of The Thing), Carpenter wisely chooses to scale back on the violence (there’s not much here that’s particularly graphic) and instead emphasize Killer Car Action. Carpenter isn’t always the best director for action—in particular, there are a few glaringly stagy moments in New York—but the action is a lot more solid here, with only one scene standing out as awkward (Christine smashing into the gas station, which looks more like a flaw of editing than direction). Even when the action is clumsy, however, it’s always overridden by Carpenter’s superior aesthetic sense, with several sequences (particularly the “fire chase” sequence, which appears to have inspired the video for Radiohead’s “Karma Police”) ranking amongst the most iconic Carpenter’s ever done. The only real complaint is that you can tell when Christine is being Evil Christine, because her windows are suddenly tinted. (Also, most of the stunt cars aren’t Furies but rather Belevderes or Savoys.)

The casting also serves Carpenter well here. Keith Gordon’s performance as Arnie might have been a career-maker had Gordon not chose to go into directing; despite a bit of overacting (mainly facial expressions) late in the film, Gordon is pitch-perfect. John Stockwell (as Dennis, Arnie’s best friend) and Baywatch-babe-to-be Alexandra Paul (as Leigh, briefly Arnie’s girlfriend) fill their roles surprisingly well, considering they seem to have been cast more on the merits of their looks as opposed to their acting ability. (It helps that, judging from the deleted scenes on the DVD, most of Paul’s most awkward moments ended up being cut.) William Ostrander (as Buddy Repperton, Arnie’s greaser nemesis) also stands out, not just because of his acting but because of his look: he bears more than a slight resemblance to John Travolta (recalling Travolta’s roles both on Welcome Back Kotter and in Grease), and he’s costumed as a Ramone (black leather jacket, black t-shirt, jeans), all of which ties in beautifully with the ’50s-via-the-’70s theme.

And, of course, there’s Roberts Blossom (as George LeBay, the brother of Christine’s previous, ill-fated owner), Robert Prosky (as Will Darnell, Arnie’s boss) and the legendary Harry Dean Stanton (as Rudy Junkins, a state police detective assigned to investigate the weird series of disappearances and deaths associated with Cunningham’s new car). One of the joys of Carpenter’s movies is his affinity for great older character-actors in strong supporting roles, and Blossom, Prosky and Stanton are three of Carpenter’s most memorable.

The storyline is, overall, faithful to the original novel in both plot sequence and theme without being slavishly so (an occasional problem with George Romero’s version of The Dark Half). A prologue establishing that Christine was Bad From the Start is the only major deviation (in the novel, it’s clear that the car is possessed/haunted by her former owner, a character who’s referred to several times in the movie but never seen); it’s a bit surplus to requirements, but doesn’t detract too much. Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Phillips prove they definitely understand the source material, and their portrayal of King’s High School Confidential-style themes is excellent.

Setting has always been one of Carpenter’s strong points, and here he does a great job of capturing the ’50′s nostalgia of the original story (the name “Arnie Cunningham” should raise a few eyebrows). I’ve already mentioned Buddy Repperton’s costuming, but there’s also the use of quite a few rock-n-roll oldies (and contemporary remakes, such as Bonnie Raitt’s version of “Runaway”). The opening/closing credits theme, George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone,” is a bit of an anachronism, but in fits in with this perfectly, being a masterful Bo Diddley/Muddy Waters pastiche.

Christine is one of my favorite King novels—I don’t think it’s his best, but I think he does a great job of portraying the high school experience. Despite the fact that Christine seems to have been written with George Romero in mind (it’s dedicated to Romero and his then-wife Christine Forrest, takes place in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, in 1978, and features characters possibly named after the Romeros and their production partner), Carpenter proves to be the perfect director for the project, efficiently applying his strengths to the material, and the result is a film I’d count as one of the best adaptations of King’s horror work.

Moment of Zen

Chasing Buddy Repperton.

• And Soon the Darkness [reviewed by Lackey]
  [1 star] A tedious suspense film entirely lacking in suspense.
• Mad Dog Killer [reviewed by the Drudgeon]
  [Zero stars] Okay movie, but not a horror movie.
• Nine Dead [Reviewed by Jori]
  3 stars: Your secrets will always come back to bite you in the ass.