Stephen King Month: Christine

3.5 Stars - Entertaining

So Stephen King's next book was written at a time where he had such popularity that the film went into production before the book was even published. The book was of course Christine.

Christine is about Arnie Cunningham and his friend Dennis Guilder, as they one day return from their summer job and Arnie sees a beaten up old 1958 Plymouth Fury and instantly falls in love with it, knowing he must have it. They meet the car's owner Roland LeBay who sells Arnie the car, letting him know that she's called Christine, despite him clearly having a strange connection with the car. As Arnie works on Christine his personality changes, he goes from being a quiet, nerdy guy, to a mean spirited and horrible person; the same personality, it turns out, as LeBay. Matters are made worse when a group of bullies from the high school trash Christine and then mysteriously begin to turn up dead. It eventually transpires that Christine is alive and evil, most likely possessed by the recently passed LeBay and has been turning Arnie into him and slowly but surely killing off those who would harm her until eventually Dennis and Leigh, a girl who Arnie had a brief relationship with kill Christine and learn that Arnie died in a road accident at the same time.

The film is quite entertaining with decent performances and some wonderful effects by the master himself, John Carpenter. To top it all off there's a soundtrack of pure classic rock that is just awesome.

As an adaptation it is decent, however a few details are changed here and there, for example they don't get Christine from LeBay, but instead get it from his brother, who was a different character in the book and told Dennis of LeBay's past. Also the way Arnie dies is different, although that was an understandable change as the relationship between him and his parents wasn't as developed as in the book and that was key to his death. Ultimately the book is better, but that's because there is more time spent with the characters and the development is better.

Sometimes Ownership Can Become Possession

In short, this is a fun film and I'd say worth a watch.