Christine (film)

Infobox Film
name = Charrit


writer = Novel:
Stephen King
Screenplay:
Bill Phillips
starring = Keith Gordon
John Stockwell
Alexandra Paul
director = John Carpenter
producer = Richard Kobritz
Larry J. Franco
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = December 9,1983
runtime = 110 min.
language = English
budget = | music = John Carpenter
Alan Howarth
cinematography = Donald M. Morgan
editing = Marion Rothman
amg_id = 1:9504
imdb_id = 0085333

Christine (also known as John Carpenter's Christine) is a 1983 horror film about a supernaturally malevolent automobile and its effects on the teenager who owns it, adapted from a novel written by Stephen King. The film was directed by John Carpenter.

Plot

The movie stars Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham, a typical high school nerd with only one friend, a childhood companion named Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell), a popular jock. Arnie's life begins to change when he discovers Christine, a red 1958 Plymouth Fury in serious need of repair. Arnie buys Christine from the original owner's brother, George LeBay (Roberts Blossom). Arnie begins to restore Christine to her original beauty, but as he spends more and more of his time repairing her, those in his life notice that he is changing as well. Formerly shy, Arnie develops a cocky arrogance and his personality becomes darker as he spends more time with Christine. Dennis, as well as Arnie's new girlfriend Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul) discover that the car has a deadly past. The previous owner, Roland LeBay, 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. Christine, however, isn't ready to give up Arnie without a fight.

During the film a group of bullies from school form together and tear the car apart with sledge hammers, pry bars and knives etc. The gang bears a grudge against Arnie after a shop class confrontation prior to Christine that results in the gang's leader, Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander), getting expelled for threatening Arnie with a switchblade.

The prolonged gang attack on Christine leaves her totally ruined, fit only for the smelter. Arnie sees the wreck of Christine the next day and is totally shocked that all the work he put into restoring the car has been destroyed. Arnie angrily blames Leigh for the wreck, and displays further problems with his temper, getting into arguments with his parents and having a scuffle with his father, which Arnie wins by grabbing his father by the neck. He is determined to restore Christine yet again to her former glory. As Arnie looks her over, he turns his back and hears the crinkling of metal behind him. Arnie looks at Christine again and sees that part of her engine is now repaired. Arnie sinisterly smiles and says, "Okay...show me." Christine, flickering her headlights on, then comes to life and restores herself so she looks good as new. Subsequently, Christine seeks out and kills the individual members of the gang who destroyed her, one by one.

In one incident, Christine has a long chase with one of the boys, during which Christine could easily kill the boy, but maliciously toys with the boy simply to terrorize him further. In the end, Christine tires of her game and crushes the boy to death in half against the wall of a building. In another incident, she destroys a gas station (trapping and burning two of the vandals inside) before running down and burning Buddy Repperton as he flees the scene in terror. She also kills Will Darnell (Robert Prosky), the grouchy, foul-mouthed owner of the garage where she resides, by crushing him in the front seat. In each of these night-time attacks Christine is badly damaged (crushed or totally burned etc) but miraculously regenerates herself every time so she looks good as new, like she just drove off the production line in 1957.

The fully sadistic Arnie pays the ultimate price when he dies after he crashes Christine into Darnell's office in an attempt to kill Leigh. Arnie is thrown through Christine's windshield and is impaled on a shard of glass, killing him. Christine continues to attack Dennis and Leigh, sustain damage, and regenerate even after Arnie is killed. After Dennis and Leigh destroy Christine, the car is compacted into a cube and tossed into a junkyard. As the camera zooms in on the crushed cube that was formerly Christine, a piece of the grill slowly bends back into shape.

Cast

Trivia

*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' blue car, which can be 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 on director John Carpenter, 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 window 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 chases, corners and kills Peter "Moochie" Welch inside the narrow space in the forklift docking area - had a rubber front end (it was forced into the narrow space, pulled from behind the actor with a cable). The chase 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 is the property of movie car and memorabilia collector Martin Sanchez. [ [http://www.allpar.com/history/christine.html Christine, the most famous Fury ] ]
*Another surviving Fury used in the film - the one that smashes into Buddy Repperton's Camaro at the gas station scene (after a vast search) - was found and reborn by Jim Garvie as a wish from his beloved son Derek - due to Derek's failing health, the car was sold and now belongs to Bill Gibson.
*The last surviving stunt car, used in the football scene where Dennis breaks his leg, currently resides in the United Kingdom in the possession of Dean Johnson of DJ Motors.
*The movie playing at the drive-in scene is "Thank God It's Friday" (1978).
*Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role of Arnie Cunningham but ended up choosing "Footloose" (1984) instead.
*When Arnie first sees what Buddy Repperton has done to Christine, the front license plate is in place. Later, when Arnie watches Christine repair herself, the front license plate is missing.
*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 chassis 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.
*At the beginning of another Stephen King movie "Cat's Eye" the car which almost hits the cat is a red 1958 Plymouth Fury, with a sticker reading "Hi, I'm Christine."
*In the "Futurama" episode "Anthology of Interest II", the short story "Wizzin'" features Fry, as the Scarecrow of Oz, attempted to scare a crow by reading "Christine".
*In the "Futurama" episode "The Honking", Bender is run down by one of the most feared of robot monsters, a "were-car" which is a red 1958 Plymouth Fury. The "were-car" passes its curse onto Bender causing him to change form and become "Bender the were-car."
*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 even 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 "", Cookie believes a green mechanical saw named Christine is trying to kill him.
*Buddy's blue Camaro which Christine crashes onto and drags backwards at the gas station scene is actually a stunt - full-attention viewers can run the film in slow motion and notice the car has no engine or inside dashboards. The real Camaro was parked offscreen and the stunt was replacing it to the crash moment.
*At the end of the movie, the white car in which Christine crashes on then flings aside has small rollers installed under it - when this car is thrown aside by Christine, the commented rollers can be clearly seen under it, actually being a continuity error.
* In the Disney/Pixar movie Cars, Christine (or a car very much like her) makes a small cameo appearance, in the "Our Town" segment when we see old cars entering and leaving the town, she is one of the cars leaving.
*Christine makes a very brief cameo in the "It" miniseries when Ben Hanscom leaves school for the first time. There is also an appearance in the book after Henry Bowers attacks Mike Hanlon in the library. The 1958 Plymouth Fury is mentioned as being the dream car of Henry's father, Butch Bowers.
* Christine can be seen briefly in the "South Park" in the episode of "Imaginationland Episode II", after the wall that separates Good Imgainationland and Bad Imaginationland is destroyed and fictional characters from Bad Imaginationland enter.
* The song "Christine" by the metal band Malice is based on the film/novel.
* "Christine" is spoofed in the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Malcolm's Car". Malcom buys a beat-up Plymouth Barracuda and becomes so obsessed with fixing it up that the mechanic helps stage an intervention. The scene from "Christine" in which Leigh almost chokes to death is spoofed in a scene in which Malcolm becomes locked in the car while it is in the garage running, At the end of the episode, Hal comments that when he was Malcolm's age, he had the same experience with his Plymouth Fury.
* On September 24, 2005, a twelve year-old ambulance nicknamed "Christine" by its crew for its unusually long service life was the last ambulance to respond to a call in the impact zone of approaching Hurricane Rita until the storm passed. The ambulance drove into a fallen tree at over 60 mph and was heavily damaged, then abandoned in the face of the storm and not recovered for days. True to her namesake, "Christine" returned to duty three months later and remained in service for another two years.

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0085333|title=Christine
* [http://57and58plymouth1.homestead.com/Christine2.html Plymouth Central's Christine page]