Review of Christine (1963) by Nick P — 27 Feb 2011

Never having read King's book I take the movie at face value and while it's far from Carpenter's best, it's also not his worst either. Story of a boy coming under the influence of a demonic car is entertaining and has some cool/ spooky scenes but it also has it's problems.

First off, Arnie's transformation and obsession happen way too quickly and is relayed to us in character exposition instead of showing us. Arnie goes from spectacled nerd to super cool man in black in a few minutes of screen time and suddenly is dating the hot new girl without any indication the two had ever formally met.

To have any impact the audience has to see Arnie's change and not just be told about it. Everyone starts hating his car but we are not shown why they suspect something's wrong with it. But, on the plus side, there are some effective sequences as Christine starts taking out anyone who stands between her and her driver and being a pre CGI film, the FX crew do an amazing job on the car's self repair sequences.

Entertaining but, could have been so much more with a better script and if Carpenter was at the top of his game. This was his first feature after the disappointing reception of The Thing and Carpenter was never quite the same after that.