CHRISTINE (1983) Three-and-a-half stars
Back in college, during my first assignment for the school paper, I wrote a section about how Americans love their cars, from Route 66 and Jack Kerouac to James Dean and back. The summer editor took out the Americans love their cars section and now, it’s a suitable introduction for John Carpenter’s CHRISTINE, an adaptation of a Stephen King novel that does put a novel spin on some American fiction tropes.

We’ve seen many, many (arguably too many) films where boy meets girl and it’s love at first sight, but this is a film where it’s boy meets car and they meet cute with the car in shambles and up for sale by a codger who’s suspiciously quick to accept any price for the car. The boy’s arguably not in any better shape than the car.

The boy in love is Arnie Cunningham, a nerd supreme, and the car is a 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine that’s definitely “bad to the bone” or at least bad to the bumper. Arnie, who dwells in 1978 California, might have liked to seen the 1957 Detroit prologue where an assembly line worker’s killed by the devil car, but Arnie and Christine are definitely meant for each other.

True love at first sight for both parties, and it will not be denied.

Yeah, you might say the film’s ridiculous, but most horror films are ridiculous, of course, and CHRISTINE works partly because it’s a love story with a twist in the main premise that we can appreciate. We love our cars, of course, but our love thankfully never reaches Arnie and Christine levels. It’s undeniable, though, to watch it happen to somebody else in a movie.

CHRISTINE also works because of the lead performance by Keith Gordon as the super nerd Arnie, who might be the cousin of Terry the Toad. He’s transformed by his love for his car into somebody foreign to his parents and his best friend Dennis, a football jock who sticks up for Arnie in the face of relentless school bullies and who questions Arnie’s purchase of the car right from the start. With this special car in his life, Arnie becomes a new young man by discarding his old taped-up horn-rimmed glasses, dressing like a latter day James Dean (ideal since Christine only plays ’50s rock ‘n’ roll), and becoming first arrogant and later belligerent, especially whenever any one comes between him and Christine. Fools they are, several individuals mess with the boy and car or just the car alone and they usually face gruesome consequences for their reprehensible actions.

We like this Arnie character and Gordon performance even more when Arnie starts taking a walk (or drive) on the mean side.

Anyway, the new brimming-with-confidence Arnie begins seeing the hot new girl in school, Leigh Cabot, and their relationship needless to say is complicated by Christine. Romantic triangles are frequent in the movies, but CHRISTINE might be the first and only one with a boy, a girl, and a killer car.

The girl and the car are both jealous of each other and that leads to the classic moment at the drive-in when the car attempts to kill the girl. Serves her right.

Needless to say, the girl wants very little to do with the boy after surviving this moment and the boy and the car become even closer, all leading us to a thrilling duel-to-the-death climax between machines in a garage.

John Rockwell and Alexandra Paul are just fine in their roles as best friend Dennis and would-be girlfriend Leigh, respectively, and if Columbia Pictures had its way, casting would have been disastrous with Scott Baio in the Arnie role and Brooke Shields as Leigh. Egads! Thankfully, the filmmakers insisted on lesser known actors. Kevin Bacon auditioned for Arnie, but he went off to do FOOTLOOSE instead and that obviously worked out best for all parties involved.

Gordon, who had previously appeared in JAWS 2 and DRESSED TO KILL, gives the defining performance of his career and his Arnie Cunningham rates with the greats in screen nerddom.

Veteran character actors Robert Prosky, Harry Dean Stanton, and Roberts Blossom (three of the best) are on hand and their old-fashioned grit and grime mesh well with the teeny boppers and the possessed car.

We talked about the subtle twists CHRISTINE puts on formula material. Well, the final line reading gives us Leigh declaring “God, I hate rock ‘n’ roll.” Probably the first teenager to ever say that in a film.