Photo: Prashant Gupta / © FX / Courtesy: Everett Collection
When you’ve had as many novels adapted into films as Stephen King, not all will be remembered. Everyone knows the hits. IT. The Shining. Carrie. Yet there are many other fantastic features from the mind of one of the greatest horror authors to ever live. Movies that don’t get the attention they deserve, lost to the long road of time.
One such film is the 1983 killer car tale, Christine, now streaming on HBO Max. King’s involvement not enough to convince you to give it a ride? Then perhaps I should also mention it’s directed by another master of horror…John Carpenter (Halloween).
What’s Christine About?
Adapted for the screen by writer Bill Phillips, we meet bullied teenager, Arnie (Keith Gordon). His best friend, Dennis (John Stockwell) believes this will be the year that they finally get Arnie laid. All Arnie wants is to get through one day without feeling like a loser. When he lays eyes on a rust-bucket of a 1958 Plymouth Fury dubbed Christine by her previous owner, the class punching-bag senses an instant connection. There’s something about the classic car that brings out a different side of Arnie. A darker side. Neither Dennis nor his friend’s new girlfriend, Leigh (Alexandra Paul) know what to do about it. They’re all about to find out that Christine is no ordinary car…and that her jealousy is only matched by her rage.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Car Scorned
I cannot wax Christine with enough compliments. After all, it’s the first horror film I ever watched at, I kid you not, the age of three. It got me behind the wheel of my love for the horror genre, and I never looked back.
A couple years ago for Dread, I wrote that Carpenter’s Christine is, “an example of what a good adaptation should accomplish that shines as bright as those furious headlights in the night. Different than the book—and better depending on who you talk to—without losing the core themes of what makes the story go.”
I stand by that. Fearing that it would be too similar to An American Werewolf in London, the film loses the ghost of the previous owner that haunts Arnie in King’s novel and allows Christine to simply exist as a living machine possessed by fury. The change deepens the strange love story between man and car without falling back on cheap explanations regarding how she came to be. What matters here are the themes of destructive jealousy, toxic relationships and the sad reality of childhood friends growing apart.
Featuring a trunk full of great performances, Carpenter’s signature atmospherics and a few car stunts that will burn rubber in your mind for years, Christine isn’t just one of my favorite King adaptations…it’s one of my most beloved Carpenter films, as well. So, hit the brakes on whatever you’re doing and stream it on HBO Max.
If I were you, I wouldn’t keep Christine waiting.
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