There’s an episode of Family Guy where, when asked about his next book by his publisher, Stephen King grabs a nearby lamp off of the desk and starts waving it around, claiming that it is a ‘haunted lamp’. I paraphrase of course, a Family Guy joke doesn’t really deserve any more than that, but the idea behind it is clear: Although Stephen King has written several stories of significant depth, like The Black Tower and The Stand, he also has a history of seemingly tossing out stories where normally mundane things end up murdering people. There’s a story where a dog murders people, one where a monkey kills people, a trucker kills people, a fangirl kills people and so on. A very simple formula and easily exploitable formula, which is where Family Guy’s ‘humor’ comes in, but one that works principally because King is someone who understands the art of suspense. Much like how Alan Moore turned a cheap British homage to Captain Marvel into the pioneer of modern comic storytelling, a talented enough writer can take any subject matter and turn it into something original and compelling. I think after years of being known as one of the most prolific authors of the modern age, King has more than proven that.
The perception of Stephen King as the ‘haunted lamp’ guy most likely got its start with “Christine”, a 1983 novel of the pain of adolescence, obsession and love, and also about a car that kills people. Later that same year, no doubt inspired by the success of Brian de Palma’s adaptation of “Carrie” and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of “The Shining”, “Christine” was also transformed into a major motion picture. The director this time round? John Carpenter, who just a few years previous had reinvented the horror genre with Halloween, and reinvented it again with his remake of The Thing from Another World. A fantastic choice, not just because Carpenter is an amazing director, but because he obviously understood how to craft a great horror film, whether it was rather minimalist (Halloween) or effect-heavy (The Thing). Carpenter has already been praised many times on this blog, so there’s no need to blow any more smoke up his ass. Suffice to say, getting John Carpenter attached to your project in the early 80s was a good sign.
Just as the novel “Christine” is a story of love, obsession and the pain of adolescence, so too is the film Christine. Specifically the pain of Arnie, the biggest nerd in Rockridge California, 1978. Abused by school bullies, lorded over by his parents, ignored by women, Arnie doesn’t have much going on in his life, until he comes across a very interesting car for sale by the name of Christine. Arnie takes an immediate liking to Christine, deciding to buy it and build it back up as good as new. At first this seems like a good thing, Arnie has become more cool and outspoken, he’s starting to attract attention from the opposite sex, but it all falls by the wayside because of Christine. Arnie is becoming obsessed with this car, devoting all of his time and attention to it, to the detriment of everything else. Thing is, seems like Christine might be just as possessive about Arnie, and she has a tendency to get a little more...physical to get her way.
So yeah, a movie about a car that kills people. Ridiculous in theory, but this is John Carpenter we’re talking about, the man who kickstarted a multi-film franchise on the back of a character that never says a single word. When you see a guy walking down a street at night and those headlights pop on, that is prime A-grade level slasher material. A lot of killings themselves are kind of downplayed, which is certainly a shame, but I think they make up for it with the car violence. Much like Michael Myers, Christine is a single-minded murderer, and no matter how damaged she gets, she just fixes herself up and keeps on going (a relatively simple effect I imagine, but in my opinion an effective one). Seeing Christine ram into a wall at full speed, getting set on fire, ramming into other vehicles...Sure, we don’t get the gruesome details of seeing someone get turned into street pizza, but the visceral power of those scenes manage to be just as thrilling as seeing Jason Vorhees stabbing a guy with a machete. Like a demolition derby with great cinematography.
Cast wise, it’s all pretty okay across the board. Dennis(played by John Stockwell) and Leigh (played by Alexandra Paul) seem a little flat for main characters, but Keith Gordon’s slow descent from lovable nerd Arnie to rebel psycho Arnie is done pretty well. This is also kind of weird, but I think Christine does old men characters really well for some reason. Will Darnell (Robert Prosky), George Lebay (Roberts Blossom), Rudy Junkins (Harry Dean Stanton) to a lesser extent, they’re such distinctive characters that your attention is drawn to them whenever they’re on screen. Is that another common theme in Stephen King’s writing? Entertaining old people? I honestly don’t know, but if Christine is any indication, I need to read more of his books.
Music wise, we have a combination of a classic Carpenter soundtrack, minimalist synths, pulsing beats and so on and a collection of 50’s rock ‘n’ roll hits, which act as Christine’s method of communication. I also have to wonder whether there were many films before Christine where they take golden oldies style music, which typically invokes feelings of wistful nostalgia and simpler times, and subverts it to some degree. It’s a common theme now, the scene in Predator where Little Richard is playing over someone firing a minigun in a military camp, the later editions of the Fallout video game series, but I wonder if Christine is where that ball started rolling. As for the rest of the soundtrack, I love synths with a passion that borders on the strange, so a John Carpenter film rarely disappoints in that regard.
Despite an absurd premise that’s stretched over a standard slasher-style framework, Christine is a fun movie. It looks great, it sounds amazing, it all runs like a well-oiled machine. Like an automobile, if you will. Those looking for a film that’s more suspenseful than outright scary, or have a passion for vintage cars will find this film right up their alley.
You’ll never think about jay-walking the same way again.
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