13 Nights of Shocktober: Christine (1983)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: John Carpenter/Stephen King Night

“You better watch what you say about my car. She's real sensitive.”

Christine (1983)          

John Carpenter’s Christine, based on Stephen King’s novel about a demonic classic car that kills people, is a hard sell. The story has an undeniably ridiculous premise, but it is excellently crafted and well worth watching. The approach taken by director John Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Phillips takes the premise as seriously as a movie about a haunted car should be taken. That tone is serious enough to allow for legitimate suspense and scares but never gets desperate for believability. Thanks to the skill at work behind the camera and a great cast, there is no trouble believing the characters or the unbelievable situations in which they find themselves.

Christine is a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury that was just born evil; she killed someone even before she came off the assembly line. Twenty years later, Arnie (Keith Gordon), a stereotypical teenage nerd—thick glasses, clumsy, low self-esteem, relentlessly bullied—finds the rusted, broken down Plymouth Fury for sale in the yard of a creepy old man. As Arnie fixes up Christine he changes too. He stops wearing glasses, slicks back his hair, and goes from put-upon wimp, to brimming with confidence, to an entitled sociopath. His best friend, Dennis (John Stockwell), a popular but level headed jock, is puzzled and troubled by Arnie’s change and suspects it is linked to Christine. 

Arnie begins dating Leigh, the attractive and demure new girl that every boy at school wants to get with, played by Alexandra Paul. When they are at the drive-in, Leigh finds herself alone in Christine for just a moment. The radio turns on by itself, glowing green and playing a 50’s pop song, and Leigh is choking suddenly.

The special effects in Christine are impressive to say the least. Scenes of the car on fire chasing down someone or smashing itself into a narrow ally to get one of Arnie’s bullies are surprisingly scary. The big showcase scene comes after Christine has been completely destroyed by Arnie’s bullies. Out of the corner of his eye, Arnie sees that the rearview mirror is fixed. He walks in front of Christine, says “show me,” and watches as Christine repairs herself to perfect condition. It is a titillating sight for Arnie and the score goes from eerie synthesizer to a salacious saxophone; it’s a sort of love scene. Needless to say, the special effects hold up so well because they are all practical. Christine’s impressive self-repairing scene was achieved by crushing the car and running the footage in reverse. When Christine smashes into something, a real car is really smashing into another car or through a wall. The sight and sounds of real twisted metal make the danger feel real.  

A lot of small touches add up to give Christine an eerie, uncanny tone: the soundtrack of synth music and 1950’s rock and roll, the out of time feel (made in 1983, set in 1978, but feels like it takes place in 1958), the understated approach to the supernatural scenes. My favorite eerie element is Christine’s green glowing radio that only plays music from the 1950’s. There are good performances all around. Keith Gordon gives a great and believable performance as Arnie becomes more and more dangerous. John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Dean Stanton, as a state police detective, give solid performances that ground the movie in an acceptable reality.

There is very little blood and no gore in Christine and since the monster is a classic car you could easily watch this with someone squeamish. Christine doesn’t get talked about as much as other Stephen King adaptations, or John Carpenter movies, or horror movies in general, but it should because this a top tier horror film from two true masters of horror.