Misunderstood Monsters: The Jealousy-Fueled Engine of ‘Christine’
By Matt Konopka
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Welcome fellow monster kids to Misunderstood Monsters. This is where I, Matt Konopka, sink my fangs into all sorts of beasts, ghouls, and creatures from above while I search for the humanity behind their frightening exteriors. From monster favorites such as The Wolf Man to obscure monsters like the whistling Shadmock, there is more to these fiends than bad hair days and gooey tentacles. Within them all is a piece of ourselves.
They say love has a voracious appetite, but if that’s true, then jealousy is a leviathan with an eternal hunger. Flailing tentacles of rage grab onto anything they can reach and pull them down into a never-ending darkness. Friends. Lovers. Family. It eats all of them. It kills me how much it eats. You can’t satisfy jealousy. Feed it a little, and it cries for more. Run all you want from it; it’ll catch up to you eventually. Because it’s faster than you are. And it never runs out of gas.
Based on Stephen King’s novel, John Carpenter’s Christine is forty this year and officially an antique, but it knows all about the timeless terror of jealousy. I suppose there’s some irony that this was the first horror film I ever saw at the ripe old age of three. In the same way that human punching bag Arnie (Keith Gordon) falls in love with a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury, I fell in love with this movie. My parents have often remarked to me how I would play it over and over again, wearing down the VHS cover until it was as worn and faded as the car first appears to Arnie. My very first obsession within the genre, it reflected what was approaching me in my teenage years like a certain goblin-faced truck from another King story. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, and whatnot.
In Christine, adapted by Bill Phillips, we meet a teenage loser named Arnie who was a lot like me at that age. Thin. Bullied. A pathetic kid from an outside perspective who feels that way about himself because everyone else does. Like Arnie, I lived a difficult home life. Like Arnie, I had an athletic best friend who played football and was quite a few rungs higher on the social ladder than I was. Like Arnie, I figured I was ugly and could not, would not, be loved by anyone. So, perhaps unlike most people, I get it when Arnie spots the beaten down rust-bucket that is Christine and experiences that all-too-rare feeling of love at first sight. I understand what he means when he responds to pal Dennis (John Stockwell) asking what it is about that car, and Arnie says, “For the first time in my life, I found something that’s uglier than me.” And — here’s where sad gets sadder, dear reader — I’d come to know the gut-wrenching transformation that overtakes Arnie, brought on by the jealousy of Christine.
Most people hear the synopsis of “killer car” and think that sounds silly. Or dumb. But horror is often so much more than that underneath the hood. Most of these stories, whether the writer is aware of it or not, depict monsters that represent the best and worst parts of ourselves. Hence this column. We watch them to either feel connected to that creature like us that no one understands, or to bear witness to a triumphant conquering of the monstrous emotions that scare us. The tragedy of Christine — of jealousy in all of its forms — is that it is never slain without destroying something first. King made an apt choice when he picked a 1958 Plymouth Fury for his story. Christine is rage. She’s burning desire. She’s a fireball roaring down a long, dark road to an inevitable end.
Opening on the bellowing roar of Christine’s engine, Arnie is doomed from the start, isn’t he? Even before he sets eyes on the supernatural car, jealousy has started to overtake him. He’s jealous of Dennis’ way with women. He’s jealous of bully Buddy’s (William Ostrander) toughness. So, what happens when Christine feeds that part of him? He takes the girl that Dennis and the other guys dream of dating, Leigh (Alexandra Paul). He dresses in black like Buddy. Chokes his father to make him feel weak like he’s always felt. Arnie always had it in him. All of us do. He just needed the car to show him how.
That’s the scary part. How easily jealousy flows through our veins like gas powering an engine. The vicious force of it becomes damn near insurmountable. As much as I adore this film, it’s painful to revisit it and see myself at that age in Christine’s glossy surface. None of the bullying or resulting sense of worthlessness that I experienced at that time is an excuse for how I behaved, but it does have a lot to do with the jealous person I became. My best friend and I grew apart for a while, perhaps because I foolishly felt as if I was living under his shadow. I set aflame my first serious relationship — my first love — once the tendrils of jealousy wriggled their way under my skin. It’s astonishing how things can seem so perfect before that antagonistic emotion goes from 0 to 60 in an instant.
This is the pedal to the metal power of Christine. Why, the same as Rock ‘n Roll, the relevance of it will never die. Jealousy doesn’t just exist in the car that won’t let anyone else get close to Arnie, or in Arnie’s desire to have what others have. Everyone feels the sting — and consequences — of it. Dennis suffers serious injury when he’s distracted by spotting Arnie with Leigh during a game. Garage owner Darnell (Robert Prosky) suffers a grim fate after taking the opportunity to get behind Christine’s wheel. Leigh gets her wish for Christine to disappear, but only after Arnie dies in the process. Dennis and Leigh didn’t have to scratch an invite into the car for a final showdown. But Christine’s jealousy had seeped deep into their souls as well and put rational thinking in reverse.
In the end, the jealousy of Christine runs over everyone, destroying herself in the process. No one escapes its effects. That image of the car in the finale, busted up and grill split like a razor-toothed mouth is the perfect summation of the true monster at the heart of Christine. An insatiable creature that eats and roars and eats some more. We have every right to hold the car accountable, though she’s a victim of it too, isn’t she? Sure, she’s bad to the bone, but she wants to be loved just as much as anyone else. Yet when that love turns to obsession, to anger, to ownership, well, that’s no longer love at all. That’s a front seat ride through an inferno of pain and misery. Destination, nowhere. 🩸
About
Matt is a writer and wannabe werewolf who began his love of horror at the ripe old age of 3 with Carpenter’s Christine. He has a horror podcast called Killer Horror Critic which he does with his wonderful wife and has previously been published on Bloody Disgusting, Shudder’s The Bite, and Daily Grindhouse. You can also find more of his reviews and ramblings at his blog, KillerHorrorCritic.com.
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