The titular character in 1983’s Christine—a ’58 Plymouth Fury with a violent temper—always intrigued me, but it was the friendship caught in her headlights that really captivated me.
My fascination with John Carpenter’s killer car flick appropriately started with its source material. Perusing the shelves at a used bookstore in the late summer following my senior year of high school, I picked up a copy of Stephen King’s Christine—the Signet paperback version with the chrome letters and zooming skull on the cover. I was already a King lifer at that point and the midnight movie vibe of this particular novel made it a must-buy.
For a while it sat on my shelf amongst many other “to be read” books, but when September rolled around, I was compelled to crack open its cover. Post high school, I was scribbling notes at the local community college while a lot of my friends were settling into dorms at sizable state colleges. Adulthood loomed ever larger ahead while Friday night football games and animated lunch table discussions shrank in the rearview mirror.
Knowing that the protagonists in King’s Christine were high school seniors and looking for a little vicarious escapism, I popped the book open to the prologue and held on tight. I was in for one hell of a ride.
Flash forward several weeks (and 500+ pages) and the rumbling engine during the opening credits of Carpenter’s Christine had my rapt attention. I was hanging out with an old friend, and, after he listened to me rave about my latest King read (which is still my favorite Stephen King novel) with an Arnie-like obsession, we decided to give his Christine DVD a go.
I was not disappointed.
Though it deviates from the beloved source material in a few key areas (the car being evil straight off the assembly line rather than being haunted by Roland D. LeBay, certain characters surviving onscreen while dying on the page), Carpenter’s Christine still took me on a ride almost as memorable as the novel.
Enhancing my full first-time viewing experience of the film was the point in my life in which I watched it. Much like the apprehensive Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) and confident Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell), my friendships (like many people at that age) were challenged by outside forces, particularly adulthood and the necessity to move on from high school.
Best pals at the beginning of their senior year, Arnie and Dennis are on the verge of entering a new, post-high school phase of their lives in which Dennis won’t always be around to save Arnie from the malevolent Buddy Reppertons (played menacingly by William Ostrander) of the world. Time could eventually drift them apart, but at least they have that final carefree year to enjoy… until Christine catches Arnie’s eye.
That ’58 Plymouth Fury scared the hell out of me, not just because of its nighttime death trips, but also due to the negative effects it had on Arnie and Dennis, accelerating the arrival of change in their lives and adding a deadly dose of danger, too. To me, that Fury was adulthood on four wheels. I could try to outrun it like Buddy or Moochie, but there was no escape from the unknown years ahead.
Making the fear of his friend's uncertain future damn near palpable is Stockwell in an admirable performance, while Gordon’s transformation from bullied boy (both at home and in school) to deadly dude with a ’50s-style wardrobe makes for a complex character who is both victim and villain at the same time.
While Christine’s targets are taken care of rather quickly, the crumbling friendship of Arnie and Dennis receives a slower, more heartbreaking death drawn out expertly by screenwriter Bill Phillips. Arnie and Dennis’ New Year’s Eve drive still gives me chills, especially when Arnie memorably tells Dennis, “We’ll always be friends as long as you stick with me, and you know what happens to shitters who don’t.”
Like Arnie and Dennis, not all friendships can be sustained when an inevitable, powerful force intervenes—be it the real world or a sinister supernatural force. But, like Dennis, you can always fight like hell for friendship, love, and the way things were. While I haven’t always done that, I can look to this film for inspiration. And every time I revisit it, I can’t help hoping that when Arnie first spots Christine, Dennis will just keep driving.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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