Christine (1983 film)
| Christine | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | John Carpenter |
| Written by | Novel: Stephen King Screenplay: Bill Phillips |
| Produced by | Richard Kobritz Larry J. Franco |
| Starring | Keith Gordon John Stockwell Alexandra Paul |
| Music by | John Carpenter Alan Howarth |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date | 1983 |
Running time | 110 min. |
| Language | English |
Christine (also known as John Carpenter's Christine) is adaptated from a novel written by Stephen King, and is a horror film about a supernaturally malevolent automobile and its effects on the teenager who owns it. The film was directed by John Carpenter.
Plot
The movie stars Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham, the typical high school nerd who only has a few friends. His life changes when he finds Christine. Christine is a red 1958 Plymouth Fury that has experienced better days. Arnie starts to spend all of his time restoring Christine to her original beauty. As he spends more and more of his time repairing her, his friends find that Arnie is changing as well. Once a shy person, Arnie has developed a cocky arrogance. Arnie's girlfriend Leigh Cabot, played by Alexandra Paul, and his best friend Dennis Guilder, played by John Stockwell, discover that the car has a deadly past. The previous owner became consumed with Christine and he paid for it with his life. Leigh and Dennis try to save Arnie from a similar fate. They realize that the only way to save Arnie is by destroying Christine. But Christine isn't ready to give up Arnie without a fight.
In the book, King never makes it quite clear as to whether Christine is evil or if it's Roland LeBay possessing her. In the movie, all mystery is taken away when Christine tries to murder someone while on the assembly line. The movie also removes the possession plotline, making it so Christine is not possessed but simply an evil car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury was also driven by the deceased Belch Huggins in King's novel It. Whether it is the same vehicle or not is entirely speculation).
Towards the end, Arnie pays the ultimate price after being struck by his own car. After Dennis and Leigh manage to destroy Christine, the car is compacted into a cube and tossed into a junkyard. But when the camera zooms in on the crushed cube of Christine, a small piece of the crushed fender moves slightly, leading the viewer to wonder if Christine was (or can ever be) truly destroyed.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Keith Gordon | Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham |
| John Stockwell | Dennis Guilder |
| Alexandra Paul | Leigh Cabot |
| Robert Prosky | Will Darnell |
| Harry Dean Stanton | Detective Rudolph "Rudy" Junkins |
| Robert Darnell | Michael Cunningham |
| Christine Belford | Regina Cunningham |
| Roberts Blossom | George LeBay |
| Kelly Preston | Roseanne Guilder |
| William Ostrander | Clarence "Buddy" Repperton |
| Malcolm Danare | Peter "Moochie" Welch |
| Steven Tash | Richard "Richie" Trelawney |
| Stuart Charno | Don Vandenberg |
| David Spielberg | Mr. Casey |
Plot differences between film and novel
There are quite a lot of changes made from the original Stephen King novel, including the following:
- The book is set in Libertyville, Pennsylvania; the film takes place in Rockbridge, California.
- The book has Arnie purchasing Christine from Roland D. LeBay himself, who dies a few weeks later; the film has Arnie purchasing it from his brother, George LeBay. George tells Arnie and Dennis that his "asshole brother" has recently died, and he is selling the car for him (although the character in the film is named George, he is wearing a rotten back brace, just like Roland in the book).
- The book details that the corpse of Roland LeBay appears in front of Arnie several times, and that LeBay's spirit has possessed Arnie, causing his personality to change. It is revealed later on in the book that it is the spirit of LeBay that takes control of the car to commit the gruesome murders; the film dispenses with LeBay completely and concentrates on the car itself being evil (director John Carpenter points out in the DVD commentary that this change streamlined the plot, and he felt that the corpse appearing was too similar to scenes in An American Werewolf in London, a film that had only been released recently).
- Many scenes are out of order, such as the fight with Buddy Repperton that happens near the middle of the book but at the start of the film.
- In the book, when Christine nearly kills Leigh inside Darnell's Garage, the corpse of Arnie's dad, Michael Cunningham, killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, lands in front of her, not Arnie. Later, when Dennis wakes up in the hospital he finds out that Arnie and his mom were driving home, when Roland LeBay's ghost appeared and fought with them, causing them to crash into a truck and dying; in the movie, in the same scene inside Darnell's Garage, Arnie commits suicide by going through Christine's windshield and dying with a thick shard of glass piercing through his thorax in order to "become one" with his beloved evil car.
- Four years after being "killed" inside Darnell's Do-It-Yourself Garage, Christine finally restores completely and goes back to get revenge on everyone it didn't kill the first time, starting with Sandy Galton in California. At the end, Dennis suspects Christine will go for Sandy, Leigh, and save him for last, and suspects it's not over.
- In the book, Dennis and Leigh attack Christine using a tank truck named Petunia; in the movie, they use a bulldozer. According to Stephen King himself, the idea of the final showdown of the book was something like "a duel between two ladies on wheels", in which Christine (the evil lady) was faced and defeated by a large tank truck also baptized after a female name - Petunia (the good lady).
- In the book, Christine's license plate is a 1978 Pennsylvania plate with HY-6241-J as the number; in the movie, "her" license plate is a black-on-yellow 1956 California plate with CQB-241 as the number and a (presumably) 1978 sticker on the rear in most shots.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. |
- The book that Dennis pulls off the shelf in the library before asking Leigh out is "Christine" by Stephen King.
- Arnie's nemesis, Detective Rudolph Junkins, also drives a Plymouth Fury. Junkins's blue car seen when he meets Arnie in the high school parking lot is a 1977/1978 Plymouth Fury - a popular police car of the late 1970s.
- As a joke, Alexandra Paul's twin sister Caroline Paul stood in for her during some scenes, most notably the ride on the bulldozer.
- To simulate the car regenerating itself, hydraulic pumps were installed on the inside of some of the film's numerous Plymouth Fury "stunt doubles". These pumps were attached to the cars' bodywork, and when they compressed, they would "suck" the paneling inwards. Footage of the inward crumpling body was then reversed, and hence gave the appearance of the car spontaneously retaking form.
- It was speculated that Christine was driven at a distance by using some type of remote controlling system, but the truth is completely different: according to director John Carpenter, when Christine was on her "evil personality" its windows were painted solid black - save for the whole left half of the windshield, which was covered only with dark purple tint so that the stunt driver could see outside without being focused by anyone out of the car. Indeed, the stunt driver had only half of his frontal view, no rear or side views, and night driving was even more difficult. Additionally, in order to film the "Arnie's death" scene at the end of the movie, the car was hooked up to cables and pulled strongly towards the wall. A stunt double dressed as Arnie went through the dark windshield - a fake glass screen made with sugar and black paint - and only after this the real Arnie (Gordon) would be focused lying on the ground with the fake glass shard "piercing" through his body.
- Stephen King's popularity was such at the time that the film went into production before the book was even published.
- One of the stunt Furys used in the film - the one that smashes and kills Moochie Welch inside the narrow space in the forklift docking area - had a rubber front end. The car was destined for the salvage yard, and has been restored using parts from the other "stunt" vehicles. This vehicle now belongs to private hands - more specifically, since 1984 it's property of a spanish-american antique cars collector named Martin Sanchez
Martin Sanchez's Christine at AllPar.com. - The movie playing at the drive-in scene is Thank God It's Friday (1978).
- Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role but ended up choosing Footloose (1984) instead.
- Various scenes were shot in Valencia, California. The scene where the gas station explodes was located on a vacant lot on the corner of McBean Parkway and Valencia Blvd. A full-size gas station set with fake gas pumps and garage bays was constructed and then blown up.
- The "Mobico" oil company is completely fictional, the name is reminiscent of a combination of Mobil and either Amoco, Sunoco, Texaco or Conoco, and the colors and design of the station are highly reminiscent of a Sinclair station.
- According to a commentary on the DVD, the car used in the scene in which the flame-engulfed Christine chases down Buddy Repperton stalled during an attempt to film the vehicle first backing out of the burning gas station. Fire crews (presumably on-hand for the shooting considering the nature of the scene) had to be called in to put out the burning car and get the stunt driver (who was wearing a full fireproof suit for protection) out.
- In the Futurama episode "Anthology of Interest II", the short story "Wizzin'" features Fry attempted to scare a crow by reading Christine. Also, in the episode "The Honking", Bender is run over by Project Satan, a cursed automobile - strongly resembling a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury just like Christine - which infects him with the curse of "were-car", and at midnight Bender turns into the evil car with a penchant for killing people.
- Christine is seen as the polar opposite to Herbie The Love Bug, often prompting online discussions between fans of the two cars as to who would win in a race... or a fight.
- In the Quantum Leap episode "Boogeyman", Sam Beckett's "kiss with destiny" inspires "Stevie" (King) with ideas for "Carrie" and shows Stevie driving off in an aquamarine 1958 Plymouth Fury, after petting his St. Bernard, "Cujo."
- In the Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide episode Woodshop, Cookie believes a green mechanical saw named Christine is trying to kill him. This is a spoof on the car Christine.