Review of Christine (1958) by Tasos L — 16 May 2010
When John Carpenter released Christine, he had some hits - Halloween, The Fog, The Thing - and a huge miss - Escape From New York. Christine was his most mainstream film at the time, and a departure from his previous work.
Based on an inferior Stephan King novel, Christine is a subtler film about addiction and how a new found power can change someone, and not for the best.
The movie is haunting and the closest Carpenter ever came to a Hitchcokian sensibility. Until this film, he had never truly developed his characters beyond caricatures. But Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham gives a very tender performance as an outcast boy who only has his beloved bright red 1958 Plymouth Fury to love and nurse... oh, and incidentally kills for him.
Like classic Hitchcock, there is no real explanation as to the why or how....just that it is. And the fact the car, for whatever reason, kills is rather scary.
The movie, though not Carpenter's best, was scary when I was a kid and is one of his more intelligent pieces of work. It has many flaws, but it makes sense in the arch of the story. The performance he elicits from Gordon raises this film to a minor classic in his repertoire. You can't help but love Christine for what he does for the boy's confidence. And you can't help but get a devilish enjoyment when they are killing off the bullies.
The movie loses steam when Christine becomes jealous of Arnie's girlfriend. When he turns on the car, it is painful to watch. When I was a kid, I actually cried a bit when he destroyed the car and left the theater unsatisfied with the ending.
But overall, this is a pretty damn good film, and one of Carpenter's overlooked masterpieces.
This review of Christine (1958) was written by Tasos L on 16 May 2010.
Christine has generally received positive reviews.
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