This movie has absolutely no right being as decent as it is.
The premise is wholly Stephen King: a haunted car wreaks havoc on a high school senior and those around him (in Maine, probably). It’s execution, however, is wholly Carpenter. Something I mentioned while discussing Halloween was how great that opening credits scroll is: it’s just unnerving. Well, I’m back again to extol the virtue of Christine’s opening credits.
Gone are is the feeling of unease created by the slowest zoom into a pumpkin ever put to film, gone is the slick, cool synth sounds of Carpenter himself. What we get this time is just as effective, a revving engine, presumably the titular Christine.
Carpenter elevates what by all rights should be an insanely difficult watch for anyone older than the third grade turns into an enjoyable, if average, outing. Casting relative unknowns helps this film (and certainly kept the budget down).
Finally, I’d like to speak on the effects and editing. The effects, certainly stop motion in nature, capture the eerie feeling that the audience probably should get from watching a demon car put itself back together. I was surprised to not see Rob Botin listed amongst the special effects crew, as this seems like something he would have whipped up in about 35 minutes (and Carpenter likes to work with his friends).
From the editing standpoint, this film features some of the best soundtrack choices ever. Many of the artists featured on the 50’s rock heavy soundtrack died tragically – Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, Johnny Ace and Larry Williams who are all featured in Christine all died under tragic or mysterious circumstances, adding a certain macabre factor to the film. It also should be noted that Christine came out in an era when using George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” to introduce a character actually meant the character was, as the title suggested, bad to the bone. (Objectively, this era ended the exact moment the hard cut from Schwarzenegger’s T-800 drives off into the night on the motorcycle after putting on the sunglasses in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, as no one was ever able to look that badass to that particular song ever again.) Carpenter scores the film, adding his touch, but this is the first of his scores that really seems like an afterthought – but a score shouldn’t really be too noticeable, really.
Moving past the soundtrack, there are so many clever color palate changes. As Arnold succumbs more and more to Christine, his outfits become more fashionable and features more red. On the flip side, our protagonist Dennis is seen driving a blue car and is often featured wearing blue. The most obvious instance of this is the scene at the end showing our three surviving characters talking about what happened to them – they’re all in blue, and all in a row, talking about being heroes and whether or not they could have saved Arnold.
With a premise as laughable as this, and as tempting as it must have been to go full on campy mode, Carpenter’s decision to play it straight and shoot it in a borderline film-noir manner (seriously, most of the deaths and drama happen in the night. If the film was black and white… you get what I’m saying) outright saves the film. I’ve never read the book, but I bet you King prefers it.
Carpenter himself didn’t feel personally attached to the film, remarking that it felt more like a job and less like his work, stating that “it just wasn’t very frightening. But it was something I needed to do at that time for my career.”
While it’s watchable, and all but unmemorable, John Carpenter’s Christine (1983) is the first of his works that I wouldn’t recommend, but I also wouldn’t recommend avoiding either. Like Halloween II (1981), I give Christine 2.5/5.
The Porkchop Express 