Wheels of Fury

Because it's a John Carpenter, and because it's a horror movie, we watched Christine (1983) - Also, because Ms. Spenser is a muscle car nut.

It stars Keith Gordon as a nerdy high-school senior, and his friend, John Stockwell, a popular jock. Stockwell sets his sights on Alexandra Paul, but Gordon falls in love with Christine, a 58 Plymouth Fury with a frightful history. We see it first on the assembly line, where it rips one man's arm off and kills another, while it's radio played songs from the 50s (because it was the 50s).

When Gordon gets it, it barely runs. He drives it over to crusty old Robert Prosky's garage to get it into shape. First he replaces the windshield wipers. Then he shows up to school with Christine in cherry (red) condition. Also, now he is dating Paul, and Stockwell is clobbered on the football field, winding up nearly paralyzed. Also, the guys that bullied Gordon are being killed by a car - Christine with blacked out windows maybe driven by psycho-Gordon, maybe not.

Police detective Harry Dean Stanton checks up on Gordon and Christine, but he can't find the kind of scrapes and dents on her that the murders must have caused. That's because Christine is self-repairing when in Demon Car mode. We get to see some of this in some truly special effects Cheepnis - mainly scenes of body panels crumpling run backwards.

All in all, I kind of liked this. Like a lot of Carpenter's movies, it kind of seems like a teen comedy for a lot of the run. Christine was kind of cool - the 58 Fury is a nice car. The scene where -SPOILER- it attacks while totally engulfed in flames is pretty cool. But you have to wonder, why don't the bullies getting chased by Christine just step off the road? No, they have to run away straight down the center line - oh well.

Ms. Spenser agrees about the car and the flames, but basically couldn't take the Cheepnis and like of likable characters. In fact, she may be done with John Carpenter. It's too bad, but I think we've watched pretty much all of his movies, so that's that.