Christine - 1983

Arnie is a 17 year-old kid, he has only one friend, he is scared of bullies because he is bullied. Of course.

He also thinks he’s ugly. One day his friend Dennis is driving him around when he sees a car for sale and is immediately enchanted, he likes it so much he buys it right away. The owner George says it’s called Christine.

It needs repairs so Arnie keeps it in a garage where he can work on it every day, and slowly he changes. Since he got Christine he started changing, acting differently, losing the glasses, being more confident and outspoken, but also making his mom despairs. Dennis never sees him anymore.

He dates the prettiest girl in school, but leigh is soon annoyed, saying that he cares more about his car than about her. So Christine locks her in and almost chokes her, until she can unlock the door and a man helps her breathe. Christine’s odometer is going backwards, like she’s getting younger.

He drives her home, trying to keep the relationship, and Christine is jealous, I guess, because it won’t start until he reassures her that nothing has changed and calls her baby.

Arnie keeps fighting with his mother, and when he storms out with Christine, his mother tells Dennis that Christine’s previous owner “died in it, of carbon monoxide poisoning” so Dennis goes to ask George about his brother.

Dennis learns that not only the guy died in the car, but his baby girl choken in it and still the guy loved his car more than anything, it was the only thing he loved. His wife died in it too, poisoned like him. George tells Dennis that he forced his brother to get rid of the car, but some time later the car ‘came back’.

Arnie is still with leigh; four bullies wreck the car (and Christine lets them…?). Arnie is hurt and fihts with Leigh and his parents for ‘her’. He ‘hugs’ Christine: “we’ll show those shitters what we can do” because tehy “can’t hurt us anymore, not if we work together”.

Christine kills one bully. Arnie tells a cop that Leigh is not his girlfriend. Christine kills the other three bullies, ‘she’ sets fire to their garage and gas station. Then it crushes a man who dare sit inside.

It’s been four months, and Leigh tells Dennis that it’s the car! Dennis tries talking to Arnie. 

Arnie talks about love, but he doesn’t mean Leigh, he means Christine, nobody can come between him and Christine.

Dennis uses a screwdriver to write ‘Darnells tonight’ into Christine, and that night he prepares to face it with Leigh. The plan is to lock it inside the garage and trash it with a bulldozer, I think.

“What if he doesn’t come?” - Dennis: “Christine will”

Unfortunately Christine is already there, waiting, and it really wants to kill Leigh. Dennis covers her with the bulldozer so Christine can’t get at her.

It’s a battle, Dennis thinks he trashed ‘her’ but it repairs itself, so at the end he has to drive over it back and forth until it’s a wreckage. 

Arnie dies, he was inside the car and when Christine crashed trying to get at Leigh, Arnie got thrown out, killed by glass in his belly. A last caress at Christine and he dies.

Christine’s lights go out, but it’s not over, Christine starts againn and is after Leigh again, and won’t stop until they wreck it completely.

At the end it’s just a square of wrecked metal, the cop calls them heroes, but a small bit of metal moves…

ITA Christine la macchina infernale