Johnuary [2025] - Christine (1983)

"You're the Devil in Disguise - oh yes, you are."

Total Score: 15/23.

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I sat down to watch this with high hopes, and a large glass of red wine (an appropriately evil colour).

The film starts with a strong song choice, Bad To The Bone (1982) - which is pretty apt, though personally I’d have gone for Devil in Disguise (1963). Older, and more maliciously cheerful.

We open in late 50’s Detroit, in a car manufacturing factory. It is here we meet her, freshly born and evil as sin, Christine. She is, undeniably, a beautiful car, artery-blood red. Before long her bonnet smashes down on a mechanic’s hand. When another worker taps ash onto her upholstery, you know he’s doomed. Sure enough, he never gets out of that car.

Jumping forward to our main setting, California, and we’re at the end of the seventies. Christine is only a little younger than me, apparently. We meet our main man Dennis, and then his buddy, Arnie Cunningham (anyone familiar with the musical Book of Mormon may raise their eyebrows here). Arnie is perfectly cast - likeable, but a bit pathetic. Dennis is effortlessly cool, or at least, he seems that way. He’s a footballer and the girls like him.

Speaking of girls, we soon spot Leigh, a new student. It’s about one second before everyone’s sleazing and gurning over her and it isn’t fun. Dennis’s acquaintance Bemis, particularly, sucks shit.

As if we hadn’t already established this is a den of scumbags, Buddy Reperton, our secondary antagonist, shows up. He’s built like a grown fucking man, with a grown-man flip knife to match. He is menacing (read, seriously threatening) Arnie. Dennis won’t have it though, and gives him a good punch before his nuts get crushed. When a teacher turns up to sort things you breathe a sigh of relief before remembering this is the seventies and the teacher is fine with threatening kids. Kinda fair in this instance, but still, oh dear. Buddy is ratted as a nutcase by Dennis, and is promptly expelled. Sure we won’t see him again!

After school Arnie sees her. A rusty piece of shit, dilapidated, but nonetheless captivating. Christine is owned by one George Lebay, a wiry old man with a back brace. He’s not the original owner - that was his deceased brother - and he’s happy to part with it for what, in modern money, is just over a grand.

Note, the film is already far less weird (and creepy) than the book, but it’s super easy watching.

Christine only has one working headlight, and smokes like Victorian London. Her horn is dead.

Meeting Arnie’s mother is interesting. She’s a difficult woman to like - strict and terse and keeping her son in her grip. You can see how a boy like Arnie might crack under years of this kind of pressure.

Less interesting is meeting Darnell, a junkyard owner. He is old and grim and tough. His face barely moves, but he is quietly threatening. An unpleasant but amusing character. In the novel, he is a fair bit more intimidating.

Time passes and Christine is improving steadily. Arnie has done a bang-up job repairing her. Darnell’s free parts are helping. Though, as it turns out, they aren’t entirely free. The man and the boy strike a deal - a business relationship of sorts. It’s not entirely explicit in the film, but Arnie is running drugs.

Dennis tries hard to charm new girl Leigh. She’s very pleasant, but not interested - in fact, she has a date lined up.

Arnie’s new hobby has made him look leaner and meaner. He’s gone quiet on his friend and family, and his mother tells us that he’s completely obsessed with Christine. That it’s appalling, because Christine’s last owner died within her. This news shocks Dennis, who confronts old man LeBay. We learn that a few people have died in the red leather seats of that car. A little girl, the old man’s niece, and her mother, from suicide.

At a football game, in which Dennis is playing, we see Leigh’s date. She pulls up in a gorgeous, sleek vehicle, driving smoothly along like a shark, glowing blood-red in the sun. Christine. Arnie, the loser to end all losers, is on a date with the new girl, and he even manages to snog her! Dennis is less than pleased, and, failing to pay attention to the sport he’s playing, is brutally hospitalized. Damn near paralyzed - that’s his last football game, forever.

Arnie, of course, visits him in hospital. Only now he’s pretty cool. And very weird. Our focus pushes onto this no-longer-nerd even more now. He attends a drive-in with Leight to engage in some heavy petting, but she gets cold feet. She’s upset. Jealous, even, of the car, which is definitely a girl, by the way. He ushers her back to the car, and by now they’re both drenched by freezing rain. Then Arnie hops out to fix a broken wiper. Ill-timed. The radio plays, and Leigh, just having bitten into their pre-made snack, chokes. Arnie is slow to act - the door is suddenly locked, and despite his desperation he cannot get in. Leigh barely manages to open her own door before a stranger takes charge and saves her with the Heimlich.

Arnie assumes the man is assaulting her, before coming to his senses (this scene is far more chilling when you hear his internal perspective, in my opinion, but they do it well here without). Leigh, of course, is extremely upset. She blames the car for her accident, questions why the radio only plays old music, and why it hates her. Arnie is unpleasant. Deeply. He all but tells her to fuck off, and storms off. Christine takes some coaxing before she’s ready to drive away.

In the black of night, Buddy Reperton and his goons come to wreak vengeance on Arnie. They crouch and hoot like monkeys, wielding knives and sledgehammers. The radio blares out midway through their destruction of the car.

Arnie and Leigh discover the car together. He crushes her hand in shock, and lashes out at her like a man possessed. At home he takes out his fury on his parents, despite their offering him a new car. His father bodyslams him when he refuses to apologize for his rudeness, and Arnie chokes him right back. I won’t lie, I was borderline on Team Arnie here - but his horrible attitude toward Leigh is unwarranted and viscerally nasty.

Later, Arnie visits his wreck. She shows him something amazing, and terrifying. He watches in glee and shock as her tyres inflate, her metal bends back into shape, creaking and twisting. The paint flakes back on and the glass flies back into place. Before you know it, she looks factory new. The music for this scene is phenomenal.

After about seventeen years of my laptop lagging, I finally got back to watching the film and we see Christine hunting one of the bullies who hurt her. His name is Moochie, which is ridiculous, and honestly a death sentence in and of itself. Arnie is notably not present for this murder, by the way, but he may well be aware of it. Pristine Christine glides along, great soundtrack playing as she does, and then scrapes through thin alleys and swerves wildly as she stalks this teen. Soon enough he is cornered and his lower half is crushed into paste. In the novel, spoilers, he is run over so many times they have to scoop him up like jam - and they find shreds of red paint embedded in his skin.

Arnie and Dennis hang, and Arnie begins to look crazed. He is pretty explicit about his plans to kill the bullies. Dennis is understandably unnerved.

As he’s visibly a complete madman, Arnie has a fun little informal interview with one Detective Junkins. This fella questions how Christine got fixed. The lame excuses wash off him. He is persistent. Names Moochie specifically. Arnie doesn’t bother looking innocent. In fact, he’s borderline threatening. But nothing definitive is said to put him away.

Later, he calls Leigh and is a horrid little prick to her. It’s clear he’s on the edge of completely losing his mind.

Buddy and a buddy go on a booze cruise. And guess who’s following close behind. It doesn’t take long before they get out of their car, and it’s totalled. Then gas leaks out. An innocent bystander spots a flicker of flame and then BOOM. BOOM. A bunch of monstrous explosions. Christine spins along, wreathed in flames like a demon. She follows Buddy as he pelts along, drifting silently and patiently behind him. We never see what happens to him.

When she gets home, smoking and dilapidated, and, of course, devoid of a driver, who is there to see it but Darnell. After a million years of buffering, I finally got to see what he does about it. He investigates the smoking ruin, and gets inside it. The radio plays. The door slams. The seat begins inching forward, and he is crushed to death. A fun and entertaining scene, but again, nothing on the novel - which is drawn out and intense. The film is far less gruesome.

Junkins and Arnie meet again at the murder scene. The car is squeaky clean. We learn that more murders happened last night than we saw - and one of them, of course, was Buddy. Arnie twitches as men in white coats pore over his baby.

Dennis and Leigh catch up. She shares her concerns, and he doesn’t really show much emotion. He’s quite keen on getting in her pants, and basically just says they’ll mess the car up if they have to. Not quite the hero we needed.

Dennis and Arnie go on a drive. It’s very very fast. Arnie drinks a beer. Goes no hands briefly - Christine cruises with no issue, of course. Dennis is freaking out. Leigh is mentioned, but Arnie is apathetic. He is busy tweaking out, eyes bulging and teeth clenched. He tells Dennis he loves Christine more than his girl, but his friend is too busy trying not to start weeping. Arnie all but quotes LeBay.

Note - this is a great scene, especially Arnie’s performance, but it was lacking one key element from the source material, and that’s, spoilers, the victims of Christine all sitting in the back seats. A suffocated little girl, a charred corpse, that type of thing. It doesn’t hold a candle to the original, but it is a solid moment.

Next morning, Dennis carves an invitation into Christine. Darnell’s. Midnight (or something equally dramatic).

Dennis and Leigh, ready at Darnell’s, have come up with a big digger-type vehicle. A snowplow maybe? Dennis still has braces on his legs, so we fear for his survival. Leigh makes her way to the office to hide, ready to shut the door on Christine when she arrives.

Right on cue, she does, but she knows what’s up and guns straight for Leigh. She narrowly escapes. The car tries hard to get at the girl, her bonnet and front mashed apart like a gaping maw. We wonder if Arnie is behind those black windows. This scene is part slasher-chase and part wild-west duel. We see that Arnie is indeed behind the wheel, fevered and mad. The car crashes forward again and he leaps out and onto Leigh. He embraces her, a shard of glass deep in his chest. He wrenches it out like a beast, but as he caresses the car his lights dim, and so do Christine’s.

Except not for long. It rises again to hunt. Dennis nails it in the side with the snow-plough vehicle. It slides forward, ignoring the destruction. It creeps toward its final victim. Leigh is paralysed with fear. Then the lights dim. But then! But then!!!! It heals. Dennis takes the initiative and smashes the fucking thing flat. The radio sings even as it’s crushed into a disc. We jump forward to the morning and it’s now a dry and dusty cube. For some stupid reason Junkins is here - apparently having survived everything. For a moment we hear music, old timey music, but then see it’s only a labourer. Thank goodness, eh?

Except… some metal twists lightly in that cube. Visibly. Fixing itself up. The end.

Overall it was a really well-made and fun film. I got a lot out of it, and Arnie was phenomenal. Leigh was also well-cast. The FX were a ten out of ten, and easily the coolest bit of the movie. The flaming car was also a great visual. The score is memorable and appropriate, and the car itself is just so nice to look at. The plot works despite changing from the novel, and feels uncomplicated and easy to follow.

That said, I do feel my enjoyment suffered from a lack of key novel moments. Heavy spoilers following for the book, guys.

The book really makes you feel sorry for Arnie. Two key things. One, he physically changes to look like the deceased LeBay (who is alive and sells the car at the beginning), which is nasty and also fucking scary. And two, he feels himself losing his grip on everything. By the end, both his parents are dead, and he effectively kills himself (though this is up for debate). I know he takes on the qualities of LeBay in the film, but it’s not quite as grim.

Other points on bits I wished we’d seen in the film. Christine making it feel like it is the fifties - changing what you see within and without it. The brief moments of the car looking brand new, only for a second, before looking old and dusty again. Roland LeBay and his horrid self (though George serves as a decent stand-in). More of Dennis stealing his best friend’s girl (which, Arnie is admittedly a crazy possessed nutter, but still, morally grey move). The original ending - in which it is ambiguous(ish) whether Christine will return. And, as I mentioned, Darnell’s death. Oh, and on that note, Buddy’s death - where he, having narrowly escaped Christine, lies near-death in the snow and is confronted by the walking corpse of LeBay, which finishes him off. Also Junkins should’ve died.

Moaning over. I know it’s not a 1-1 adaptation, and it works just fine without all that stuff. I just feel they miss out on some of the finer horror moments! I really did enjoy the film and I’m sure I’ll watch it again.

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Art by Rachael.

As ever, thanks for reading,

Until next time,

H.E

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