Christine (1983)
Directed by John Carpenter
Nerdy high schooler Arnie Cunningham falls for Christine, a rusty 1958 Plymouth Fury, and becomes obsessed with restoring the classic automobile to her former glory. As the car changes, so does Arnie, whose newfound confidence turns to arrogance behind the wheel of his exotic beauty. Arnie's girlfriend Leigh and best friend Dennis reach out to him, only to be met by a Fury like no other.
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What critics compared Christine to
Imagine Stephen King’s “Christine” and “Maximum Overdrive” with nothing under their hoods.
A 1958 Plymouth Fury, room 1408 at The Dolphin Hotel, and here an Organ Grinder Monkey…
In the present day, there’s a punk called Thrasher, played by Halloween Ends’s Rohan Campbell, who feels decades out of date with a Ramones-adjacent ’70s-punk aesthetic, like the anachronistic high-schoolers of Christine but more consciously goofy.
Employing a dramatic, even jarring shift in tone from one narrative feature to the next is practically a horror filmmaking tradition, indulged by luminaries such as George Romero (Season of the Witch to The Crazies), John Carpenter (Christine to Starman), and Tobe Hooper (Lifeforce to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2).
Tex Avery and his Warner Bros. pals led the way in humanizing autos long ago, and there was that cutie “The Love Bug,” and a real but diabolic Plymouth Fury in “Christine” (courtesy of Stephen King and John Carpenter).
…worthy of sitting alongside classics like “The Shining,” “The Dead Zone,” “Christine,” and “Misery.”
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Then, the schlock shock author put out a string of less-than-stellar works like “It,” “Christine,” “The Tommy Knockers” and the novella “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” among others.
As elegiac as Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile, nostalgic like Stand By Me, and more overstuffed with mid-20th century rock’n roll than Christine, The Life of Chuck is the epitome of the empathy at the heart of King’s work that keeps fans coming back, and his bitterest critics recoiled.
The flame-throwing kid from Firestarter or the haunted car in Christine can’t compare with Misery’s mutilating, psychopathic ex-nurse, Annie Wilkes.