Christine

Shortly after getting Christine, Arnold starts changing from the nervous unsure nerd into someone who has a lot of confidence. He even loses his glasses, and starts dating the new student Leigh Cabot (Paul), tagged by the other high shool guys as the most beautiful girl in school. Christine has a symbiot relationship with her owners, where each draws from the love they have for each other. Of course, owning Christine is destructive, as even a mild-mannered kid like Arnold is seduced by the car's evil, eventually not caring who gets hurt when it comes to Christine.

The school is populated by all the same kids you went to school with if you were in high school in the early eighties, like me. The jocks, the nerds, the toughs (Ostrander's Buddy Repperton) and the tough's click of groupies, who feed off his energy. Strangely, just the same type relationship that Christine has with her owners.

The writing is really good, especially the scenes where the high schoolers are interacting with each other. Took me right back to my own high school days. The music is also extremely effective, although the music composed for the movie is very reminiscent of the music for HALLOWEEN. The best part of the music for me, though, is how the music that Christine plays fits the action that is currently happening. One of my all-time favorite movie soundtracks.

There have been a lot of "killer car" movies, including THE CAR, KILLER CAR, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and even KILLDOZER. But none of them have the magic that CHRISTINE pulls off. While there have been some good movies in this sub-genre, the ones I've seen aren't as good. I think it's due to the source material of Stephen King's novel (in which Cristine was a 4-door) and Carpenter's direction. Combined, it turned out an excellent movie.

Th effects are also very well-done. Especially the scene where Christine basically rebuilds herself. It was done with prefabbed balloons, but unless you really look for it, you can't tell. And the scene where a flaming Christine chases one of the toughs down the road is a shot that was also extremely well done.

Keith Gordon, as the nerdy Arnie Cunningham whose personality is transformed by the titular red 1958 Plymouth Fury that he buys in order to help win the attention of Leigh Cabot (the winsome Alexandra Paul), is brilliant and spellbinding in his portrayal of this very fragile character. His slow but steady descent into revenge, cruelty and madness is especially intriguing; he goes from being a very sympathetic character in the first half of the film to a complete raging sociopath by its end. Psychologically, his transition from shy doormat to dangerous monster is perhaps even more frightening than Carrie White's parallel metamorphosis; Carrie lost everybody who was--or whom she thought was--on her side, but Arnie ends up losing his soul.

In addition to Keith Gordon's terrific performance, we have John Stockwell as Arnie's best friend Dennis, who unsuccessfully tries to keep Arnie from going off the deep end. Also in a memorable supporting role is the venerable Robert Prosky, going totally against type to play the grouchy, scruffy, foulmouthed auto-body shop owner Will Darnell. Although the wonderful veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton appears in this film, he is very much wasted in the thankless role of Detective Rudolph Junkins, whose only function is to show up every once in a while to ask Arnie some suspicious questions after someone gets offed. (It is of note that the future Mrs. John Travolta herself, Kelly Preston, has a bit part as well.)

CHRISTINE may not be the best Horror film ever made, but I do think that it's one of the best. The story is extremely interesting and really hooks you from the first scene onwards. In addition to the acting, the editing is first-rate; indeed, it is so good that the premise of a possessed and evil car actually looks believable! Then there is the music: 50's Rock 'N' Roll makes up the most of the soundtrack, although George Thorogood's early-80's classic "Bad To The Bone" is used to good effect. The car's radio is practically a character-within-a-character, and is used so effectively that the first sound of it inspires a real sense of danger. Of course, John Carpenter has to be fully commended for a great job in bringing Stephen King's vision to life on the screen.

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