Christine (1983)
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Christine Movie Review
Christine is a 1983 supernatural horror film directed by John Carpenter and starring Keith Gordon and John Stockwell. It is one of King’s sillier stories.
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“You better watch what you say about my car.
She’s real sensitive“
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Arnie restores an old car and names her Christine, but he is unaware that she has an evil presence within her. When anyone tries to come between her owner and her, they are not spared. Based on a Stephen King novel, Christine is this highly ridiculous, but undeniably entertaining flick that is more a comedy than a true horror feature.
None of it is scary, but all of the car scenes are wildly entertaining and enjoyable in their over-the-top scenarios. The final scene with the bulldozer is so much fun. For a horror film, it should have been much scarier as I never really found it particularly intense. The car is menacing, but again it’s too silly to be taken seriously.
The first half of the flick focuses on the teenage experience. Many of the situations as presented here were overly caricatured and unrealistic as King has a tendency to do, though some rang true. What is different about this story is the role of the geek. He is bullied at first, yes. Eventually however, he himself rebels and becomes an antagonist in a very clever, interesting turn of events.
Keith Gordon was very good in this highly intriguing role. He’s an actor whose career never really went anywhere after this movie, but here he made a solid impression. John Stockwell as his best friend was also fantastic and at times almost resembling a movie star with his charisma. The female characters are only mildly memorable.
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The shifting between the protagonist and the antagonist as the focus of the movie was very well handled and interesting, but Christine still felt overlong, slowly paced and at times dragging, which is a problem for a movie that should be fun first and foremost. The car scenes were very well filmed and the action looked authentic, which was important. But again, even if the movie is very fun and very well made, the immense silliness remained its biggest hurdle.
