John Carpenter – Christine

The car in this film is evil… ‘Bad to the Bone’.

The opening shows the birth of the car on a Detroit assembly line. The car is introduced as a character in its own right as opposed to becoming possessed by its previous owner as written in the Stephen King book.

The car is loyal to its 17 year old owner, Arnie. He starts out as a hapless weedy nerd but changes into a greaser which his friends and family attribute to his obsession with Christine. He develops an arrogant, paranoid character.

Christine is protective of Arnie. On a drive-in movie scene Christine attempts to strangle Arnie’s date. Christine also takes revenge on Arnie’s bully’s, chasing them down and killing them.

Arnie’s friends conclude that the only way to help Arnie is to destroy Christine. They set a trap for Christine in a garage but this goes wrong when they find Arnie is behind the wheel and is killed having been thrown through the windscreen.

Christine has the ability to morph back to pristine shape each time she is damaged. In the final scene, having been crushed, she shows a small sign of repairing herself yet again.

Twenty four ’58 Plymouth Fury’s were purchased and modified to create the required number of versions for each of the scenes. One version was destroyed by sledgehammers. In another it was set on fire. One was cut in half and the front half attached to a filming truck so that the footage could be closer to the action.

The remorphing scenes made use of hydraulics inside the car to crumple the chassis inwards. The footage was then reversed to show the car moulding itself back in to shape.

There is a light and dark element to the film supported by a strong rock and roll soundtrack. The more sinister scenes were shot at night making use of street lights, headlamps and explosions. The road surfaces were watered to increase the atmosphere with reflections of light.

The normally upbeat teenage exuberance associated to rock and roll is turned into a sinister motif when it is played from Christine’s radio.

This is quite a disturbing film where the protagonist is killed. The antagonist, Christine, appears to be indestructible and still shows signs of life at the end. This is a typical motif used in horror where no matter how many bullets, or how far the bad guy falls, they seem impossible to kill.

As a viewer you leave the film being suspicious and unnerved by machines.