If you are a reader of this site and you know nothing of a 1958 Plymouth named Christine…you had better be young. December 9th marks the 35th anniversary of the release of John Carpenter’s take on Stephen King’s tale of automotive infatuation, love and wrath and it’s one flick that shaped and molded me early on. When I first saw the movie, when I was five, I didn’t understand the dynamics of Arnie Cunningham’s physical and mental changes, or the 1950s culture references, or the reason behind the doo-wop songs that played out of the Plymouth’s radio. All I knew was that the red-and-white car scared the ever-loving hell out of me and that my mother was intent on beating my uncle half-to-death for letting me watch the film.

I got over the fear, and now Christine is a lesson on teenage life if you really read into it. What do you love more…the car or those around you? How enveloped are you with both? I still prefer the book over the movie…there are too many differences between the two to ignore, for starters…but that’s not to say that John Carpenter botched the movie. If anything, he made Christine meaner. You can read about the Plymouth’s rev-idle-rev threatening on paper, or you can watch the Fury idle into the street with Thurston Harris’s “Little Bitty Pretty One” thumping out of the speakers before all hell breaks loose.

Maybe I should watch the movie tonight. It’s been a while…