Film

Christine

Name: Christine
Genre: Horror
Released: 1983
Cast: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, Harry Dean Stanton

Other titles called Christine: the 2016 film.

John Carpenter's possession-by-car film wraps teenage transformation in a metal shell. Arnie, a nerdy kid, buys a dying 1958 Plymouth Fury and becomes someone new—confident, cruel, mesmerizing. The car is sick with jealousy. It's less about scares than watching a good kid corrode from the inside out, set to a gorgeous 50s soundtrack. For anyone who loved how Carpenter makes ordinary things feel alive.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy high-school stories slowly curdling into dread, and John Carpenter's moody, synth-scored craft will hold you while a rusty car's charm turns sinister.

Skip it if you need brisk scares from the opening minutes, since the first stretch lingers on teenage bickering and restoration tinkering before the dread gets its teeth in.

What it asks of you: Expect a leisurely, character-led build around a 110-minute runtime, with patience for a slow drift into darker territory and attention to the friendship and romance that anchor it.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Thing1982

Carpenter at his absolute peak: paranoia, isolation, practical effects that still horrify. A masterclass in tension that never releases. This is the work of someone who understands dread at a molecular level.

But Claustrophobic and relentlessly bleak. No hope, no respite. If you need the hero to win clearly, this will frustrate you.

Carrie1976

De Palma's operatic take on teenage metamorphosis and revenge. Sissy Spacek becomes something terrible and beautiful. Like Christine, it's about a kid transformed, but here the power comes from within, erupting outward with balletic violence.

But Heavy on 70s special effects and dated aesthetics. The religious zealotry at the core can feel overwrought now.

Bullitt1968

Steve McQueen and a car that's almost a character itself. That chase scene rewrites what cinema can do. It's Christine's ancestor—the machine as extension of self, cool and lethal and magnetic.

But Long stretches of procedural detective work between the set pieces. Patience required. McQueen's blank affect isn't everyone's idea of charisma.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Christine

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Possession1981

Both transform ordinary people into something consumed by desire. Both use a vehicle (literal car, metaphorical lover) as the agent of that corruption. Both are about possession as seduction, not violence.

Andrzej Żuławski's hallucinatory, erotic nightmare of a marriage disintegrating into something monstrous and alien. Like Christine, it's about watching someone you know become unrecognizable. But here the possession is metaphorical—obsession, infidelity, madness—and it's infinitely stranger. Isabelle Adjani is extraordinary. The film is bewildering and unforgettable.

But Genuinely incomprehensible in places. The pacing is fractured. Adjani's performance is so committed it borders on the unwatchable. This is deliberately difficult.

The Exorcist1973

Possession cinema at its most purely terrifying. Friedkin's control is absolute; every image disturbs. It's the template for what it means to be invaded from outside. Christine plays possession as seduction. The Exorcist plays it as violation.

But Two hours of suffering. Genuinely hard to watch. The special effects, though groundbreaking, can read as theatrical rather than scary.

Videodrome1983

Cronenberg's fever dream about screens consuming a man's mind. Like Christine, it's about invasion and transformation, but weirder and more biological. A descent into unreality that's almost hypnotic.

But Surreal and often incomprehensible. Body horror that's graphic and grotesque. Not for the squeamish or the literalist.

Halloween1978

Carpenter again, but simpler and even more effective. Michael Myers stalks Laurie Strode with inexplicable persistence. The restraint is what kills. Everything essential, nothing wasted.

But A product of its time in how it treats women. The killer's motivation is opaque to the point of absurdity.

Scanners1981

Cronenberg's earlier body-horror masterpiece about psychic mutants and corporate conspiracy. That head-explosion scene changed cinema. It shares Christine's interest in physical change as both horror and liberation.

But The plot is secondary to the body horror. Logic takes a backseat. If you need coherent worldbuilding, you'll lose patience.

The Fury1978

De Palma's companion piece to Carrie—another film about hidden power emerging. Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving caught in a psychic arms race. Like Christine, it transforms the protagonist into something dangerous and beautiful and doomed.

But Labyrinthine plot that prioritizes mood over clarity. Some scenes feel padded. The ending is abstract rather than satisfying.

Suspiria1977

Argento's hallucinatory ballet of terror. A girl enters a dance academy and discovers it's a witch's coven. Possession, yes, but surreal and painterly. The technique here—color, sound design, editing—makes the impossible feel inevitable.

But Very Italian horror. The dubbing is weird. The logic is dreamlike to the point of dream-logic incomprehensibility. Some find it more style than substance.

Two-Lane Blacktop1971

The car as companion, love object, extension of self. Both films see the automobile as something alive with intent. But where Christine is horror, Two-Lane Blacktop is almost romantic—a car that embodies freedom instead of corruption.

Hellman's strange, meditative film about two drivers and their car—a GTO that's pure id on wheels. They race across America in a film that moves like a trance. The car IS the character, as much as Christine. But instead of possession through fear, it's possession through desire and obsession. Hypnotic and nearly perfect.

But Nothing happens. There is no plot. If you need narrative momentum or dialogue you can follow, this will exhaust you. Very 70s in its refusal to please.

Strangers in the Night2015

Both films examine how inanimate things can become vessels for something hostile and jealous. Both transform the people who love them. Both ask: what if an object could *want*? But The Night Strangers sprawls across hours, letting dread accrue slowly rather than build across a film's running time.

Dan Simmons' miniseries adaptation about a family moving into a house where something ancient and wrong lives. Like Christine, it's about an object (house instead of car) with malevolent agency, transforming everyone who touches it. Slower-burn, more literary, genuinely unsettling. Deeply weird in the best way.

But Miniseries pacing can feel slack. It's genuinely obscure and hard to find. The weird never quite explains itself, which some will find frustrating rather than atmospheric.