revenge of the nerd's car

christine is slow by today's standards, but never boring. john carpenter turns steven king's living killing car into a creepy movie worth spending some time with.

a nerdy kid, arnie, gets bullied at school and lives in a strict home. He finds the car of his dreams, a seriously beat up old car. no one has any idea why he likes the old car, not even himself, except the old man who sold the car to him. he knows the car is possessed and arnie's friends will soon be concerned about his unlikely obsession over the car. soon enough the kid has the car fixed up and in the process has transformed himself into a suave and confident man. the highschool bullies have one last attack on him...they destroy his newly restored car. but the car restores itself and then arnie with the car take their revenge on the bullies.

its a little unclear what or when arnie knows what the car is capable of. while certainly intentional as a 'mystical' sort've confusion on carpenter's part, there does seem to be continuity errors that happen because of it. its hardly noticeable, however, and i think you'd have to really analyze it to make any guess to what was wrong with it. i take it for what it is and don't bother to over-analyze. the largest problem i have with the film is the 'possessed' car. the idea is cool, but there's no attempt to suggest why its possessed. in fact the opening scene shows the car still on the assembly line where it maims one person and kills another despite being just another car on the line. tell me a disgruntled worker curses it, tell me it was the last one made, tell me anything really...but just any car suddenly possessed doesn't make any sense.

acting is great here, filming is solid, and the plot excellent. there's not much to complain about. its a strong film and i'm surprised i've not seen it before now.



9/10