Christine (1983)

A nerdish boy named Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) and his friend Dennis Guiller (John Stockwell) arrive on their first day of school.
During lunchbreak Arnie is tormented by a gang of punks led by the nasty Buddy Reperton (William Ostrander) but then the gang are sent to the principals office as the teacher found out that Buddy had a switchblade knife. Buddy swears on getting even with Arnie and Dennis.
While Arnie and John are on their way back home they see an old wrecked up 1958 Plymouth Furyfor sale at a cheap price and Arnie insists on buying it since he feels that the car has a thing for him. He does so and takes it to a car shop to fix it up.

Before you know it, it looks shiny and brand new. But the car is alive as Arnie names it Christine.
Christine once killed someone in 1957 at the same car shop she's in now and the car has been put to rest ever since.
Christine only plays tunes from the 50's in the car radio. Also, Arnie starts dressing up as a 50's greaser and becomes obsessed with Christine, starts turning nasty and even rebels against his family.
Christine also has deadly plans as she nearly kills Arnie's date named Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul) out of jealousy at a drive in, kills the car shop owner.

Buddy's friend Moochie (Malcolm Danare) tells Buddy where Arnie keeps Christine at and so Buddy and his gang of friends trash Christine.
However, the gang doesn't realise that Christine is almost immortal and fixes herself up and then goes on a killing spree killing Buddy and all of his friends.

The police thinks that Arnie is a suspect and questions him but Arnie is very fresh with the officer.
John and Leigh gets very suspicious with Christine as they try to help Arnie about it but Arnie doesn't listen and the two try to put an end to Christines evil deeds.

A great movie to watch. Stephen King keeps his tradition for teenage plotlines like he did with Carrie and Bill Philips was terrific bringing it onto screen.
The action in it is suspenseful. The car looks like a total threat when the lights shine on high beam.
Plus it was awesome that the story took place in 1978 which was one of my favourite era's of style.

The acting is great! Keith Gordon is a natural character as Arnie at first playing a nard and then becoming a smart mouthed bad ass.
John Stockwell as his friend Dennis does great too as he is very natural and fits the part as a popular outgoing teen.
Alexandra Paul is both beautiful and talented (A bonus for Carpenter).
We also have a supporting role by William Ostrander who resembles John Travolta in almost every way and plays a similar character like Travolta did in Carrie as the nasty head bully Buddy. He did a great job. At first he was a tiny bit rusty but he really picked up his character. Unfortuately, William remained a virtual unknown doing only a handful of shows. Some of you may have seen him in the women's prison exploited flick Red Heat with Linda Blair.
However, Malcolm Danare who played his friend Mooch needed more inspiration as I didn't believe he was a nasty one too like he was supposed to be.
Also there's a smaller role by Stu Charno as another creepy friend of Buddy's named Don Vandenberg who had a bigger role in Friday the 13th Part 2 as one of the camp counsellors in training. He was in almost all of the scenes with Buddy's gang but isn't as big of a part in it.

A piece of glass is cut in Arnie's stomach and a corpse is on fire which is Buddy but really it isn't gory as the plot is suspenseful and good the gore isn't necessary.

John Carpenter is marvellous with this one like he is in most of his film he directed.
I loved his films Halloween and The Fog.
There's a realistic look at a bullying moment with supporting actor William Ostrander taunting Keith Gordon by taking his lunchbag away from him in Autoshop classroom. Ostrander really showed a nice rage towards Gordon when he is sent to the office as well as towards bit part actor David Spielberg who played a teacher.
There's an effective quarrelling with Gordon towards supporting actors Christine Belford and Robert Darnell as his parents about when he buys the car.
Robert Prosky was well directed as a nasty garage owner making himself not so pleasant towards Gordon. Gordon reacts well to this by being nervous about it all.
John Stockwell was good at associating with the other actors playing his friends at the library staring at Alexandra Paul and is nervous when he tries to ask her out on a date and does his speech very well towards her with good expressions too.
We see a nice change in Prosky towards Gordon when he offers him some small work to earn some money as if you don't want to turn it down to get him aggressive again.
There's a good reaction on Stockwell running in the football field staring at Gordon and Paul when they enter to watch him and a perfect shot of his accident.
We spot a good dialogue between Gordon and Stockwell in the hospital looking like real teenage friends having a chat.
There are great shots on Ostrander and his gang sneaking into the garage and vandalising Christine. Ostrander looked perfect standing on the roof of the car with a sledge hammer.
Gordon shows a nice shocked reaction to his battered up car and was perfect losing his sanity.
The most disturbing direction was with Gordon towards Belford and Darnell when they offer to buy him a new car and he gets in a rage disrespecting them causing Belford to cry and Gordon nearly acting violent towards Darnell which makes you cringe and wonder if you were ever like that with your parents when you went through a rebellious phase with them. It;s almost hard to watch and Stephen King's book is way more extreme with it. Totally psychological close to it's best.
A perfect shot on supporting actor Malcolm Danare walking in the dark night and Christine's headlights shine on him all of a sudden.
Gordon knew how to act fresh towards Harry Dean Stanton's character when he is questioned about the first murder case.
Great camera shot on Ostrander and Ostrander and Steven Tash driving in their car and Christine's headlights shine on them from their back window.
I loved it Ostrander stood at a gas station screaming "C'mon you prick!!!!" picking up a crowbar towards Christine and then we have a good shot on the car smashing up the station causing it to explode.
Great shot on Ostrander running away in the middle of the road with Christine blazing with fire on his tail.
Gordon behaved really nasty and intense with a phone conversation towards Paul as she knew how to act scared and upset by all of this.
There's a nice and dark conversation between Gordon and Stockwell cruising in Christine. Stockwell really knew how to let out a frightened sob about his friend changing and acting evil with his car.

The music was composed by John Carpenter of course and makes his music similar to the music he composed for Halloween 3 (Of course it didn't sound effective for that one) and The Fog.
There's also additional music by Alan Howarth.
I loved the screeching sound effects when Christine turn on her headlights ready to kill her prey.

We also have a soundtrack by many oldies including the hits "Keep a Knockin'" by Little Richard and "Rock N Roll is Here to Stay" by Danny & the Juniors as they played on the radio in Christine before she tries to kill someone.
Plus there are other oldie artists like Buddy Holly, Thurston Harris, Dion & the Belmonts, Richie Valens, Larry Williams and Robert & Johnny.

We also have more currents tracks as the movie opens up with Tanya Tucker's version of "Not Fade Away".
Also, while Buddy and his friend Richard are listening to the Rolling Stones classic "Beast of Burden" in their car when Christine is on their tail. Perfect touch as many juvenile delinquents listened to the Stones through the 60's and 70's cause of the band's bad boy image.
During the closing credits we have George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" which was used in many other films like Terminator 2 and Problem Child.