Stephen King has had much of his output adapted to the big screen. Frank Darabont's three King movies are glowing exceptions to the standards of most of these adaptations, which have varied from barely adequate down to appalling (and I include Kubrick's The Shining in the latter category - as an adaptation, it stinks).
John Carpenter's Christine is another honourable exception.
King's story of a Plymouth Fury which is displaying its (never explained) malevolence before it has even rolled off the assembly line may well be one of his lesser works, but it is still populated with real people and carefully constructed, even to the first person narration from Dennis (the film does not use Dennis as narrator, but it shows a lot of what happens from Dennis' point of view).
Carpenter does a solid job of picking up most of the novel's beats and delivering them in slick, atmospheric fashion. The cast - largely unknown at the time - does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, particularly Keith Gordon who conveys pre-Christine Arnie's nerdiness, post-Christine Arnie's single minded obsessiveness, and the transition from one to the other, all with complete believability.
A tolerable job is carried out in using mechanical effects (and film run backwards!) to convey the fact that Christine has a life of her own.
And the movie contains one of THOSE moments, you know, the ones which make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, when Arnie says "Show me", Christine's lights come on, and the music delivers a creepy downwards glissando.
John Carpenter's Christine is another honourable exception.
King's story of a Plymouth Fury which is displaying its (never explained) malevolence before it has even rolled off the assembly line may well be one of his lesser works, but it is still populated with real people and carefully constructed, even to the first person narration from Dennis (the film does not use Dennis as narrator, but it shows a lot of what happens from Dennis' point of view).
The story is tragic in that Artie, carefully constructed to be a victim in his pre-Christine world, is destined to be destroyed by Christine from the moment she gets her claws into him, even though he goes through a period of illusory apparent non-victimhood before being lost (in similar fashion to Jack Torrance being consumed by The Overlook).
Carpenter does a solid job of picking up most of the novel's beats and delivering them in slick, atmospheric fashion. The cast - largely unknown at the time - does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, particularly Keith Gordon who conveys pre-Christine Arnie's nerdiness, post-Christine Arnie's single minded obsessiveness, and the transition from one to the other, all with complete believability.
A tolerable job is carried out in using mechanical effects (and film run backwards!) to convey the fact that Christine has a life of her own.
And the movie contains one of THOSE moments, you know, the ones which make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, when Arnie says "Show me", Christine's lights come on, and the music delivers a creepy downwards glissando.