Christine (1983) - Blu-ray Review

Details: By Loron Hays; 01 October 2015

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Christine - Blu-ray Review

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John Carpenter’s Christine is a masterpiece. There. I said it. There’s simply no other way to put it. Criminally underrated by damn near every critic, its release this week on blu – thanks to Sony Entertainment – offers me the opportunity to argue for its reconsideration as a classic in the horror genre because Carpenter gets everything right in his adaptation of Stephen King’s book.

The whole of Christine – including the minimalist approach to the synth score – works to create a mood of sheer psychological terror. He should be applauded for being among the few directors successful at adapting King’s material for the big screen. This is a small movie with a big impact upon its audience. From the roar of her engines to the cries of her victims, Christine is one slick ride through Hell.

Released the year after The Thing was kicked around by almost everyone (because, apparently, people were very slow appreciating Carpenter), Christine, as Carpenter has publicly confessed, was a money-grub. That’s right, he did it for the money. With that as his sole motivation, it’s a testament to his visual prowess that the film is so damn remarkable. There is actual thought greasing its wheels and that, as we all know, is a remarkable feat when it comes to Hollywood.

Christine is a film about a boy, Arnold Cunningham (Keith Gordon) and his car, a used red-and-white 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine. Arnold is a certifiable nerd. Christine is a clunker. They seemed destined for each other. And they are. Due to the Detroit factory opening, we know something is seriously wrong with Christine; it’s a vehicle designed to deliver evil as it possess all who give it attention and Arnold, with his attentiveness to her reconstruction, is ripe for her influence.

Co-starring John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, and Harry Dean Stanton, Christine and its cast of (mostly) unknowns are polished and primed to deliver effective storytelling. Watching it now, one can’t help but marvel at its simple successes. The adaptation by Bill Phillips is streamlined and frank in its teenage concern for Arnold as he falls more and more in love with Christine and the be-bop classic tunes she creepily plays. It's as if she's communicating to him and to her victims.

Carpenter and cinematographer Donald M. Morgan add a lot to its well-timed composition of shots and the film’s overall look, successfully adding impact with a minimalist approach to terror. Several shots echo the hopelessness captured in the moment where Christine chases and runs down its victims. These are masterful compositions that music videos and other films still copy.

While it deviates from the source material to suggest that Christine was “born” evil (arguably more effective), the movie eclipses the book in that it pounces on a very real idea that our possessions actually possess us. Arnold, once he buys Christine, changes dramatically. Suddenly, appearances matter. Suddenly, he has a hot girlfriend. Suddenly, he spirals out of control. And Carpenter, grounded in the reality of the every day citizen, keeps the narrative focused, tight, and scary as hell.

Christine, for any hound of horror, is one ride you definitely do not want to miss.

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MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 110 mins
Director: John Carpenter
Writer: Bill Phillips
Cast: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul
Genre: Action | Drama | Horror
Tagline: Hell hath no Fury...like a 1958 Plymouth
Memorable Movie Quote: "Whoa, whoa. You better watch what you say about my car. She's real sensitive."
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Official Site:
Release Date: December 9, 1983
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: September 29, 2015
Synopsis: A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.

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Christine - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - September 29, 2015
Screen Formats: 2.40:1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Thai
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit); French:; Dolby Digital 2.0; German: Dolby Digital 2.0; Italian: Dolby Digital 2.0; Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0; Russian: Dolby Digital 2.0; Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0; Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD); UV digital copy; Digital copy
Region Encoding: Region-free playback

Gorgeous. Sony’s AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1 must be seen. It is flawless. It is, in fact, one of the most engaging transfers I’ve ever seen from a movie originally filmed during the 1980s. Black levels are deep. Shadows are equally expressive and, shockingly, well-lined. The colors are both bold and crisp and detailed to the extreme. The texture, my god, the texture is just incredible. A movie this old is not supposed to look this crisp and fresh and, yet, Christine is exactly that. Flesh tones are solid and the car is super-sleek with a nice sheen. A lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers a solid audible texture to the release as well.

Supplements:

Commentary:

This is rich stuff right here. Featuring John Carpenter and Keith Gordon, the commentary for the movie is studious matter that covers the film and several of its key and memorable sequences.

Special Features:

Sony Entertainment provides fans with a healthy offering of deleted scenes and some previously released inside looks into the making of the film, the scoring of the film, and the film’s overall legacy. There is good stuff served with this release.