Christine (John Carpenter, 1983) D+

Christine is, for all intensive purposes, an awful film. Its trashy, illogical and campy beyond belief, but its also quite a bit of fun and an easy way to spend a couple of hours. The first half sets up an interesting concept that could only work in a horror film- a car who gets jealous of her owner's girlfriend- and executes it as well as possible. Just when you think you're falling for it, however, you suddenly realize that it's a car that's killing people and it becomes ridiculous all over again. And that ending was the most anti-climactic and boring I've ever seen. Christine circles Leigh and the bulldozer that Dennis is driving for like two minutes straight- and it's not even suspenseful or anything. Just tedious. I also hated Arnie's transformation from nerd to cool dude. In the first scene, he's so blind without his glasses that he can't see them two feet in front of his face when the bullies knock them to the ground. Ten minutes later, his vision is so perfect without his glasses he can drive his car. What the fuck? Where's the explanation for that? Arnie's toast, just before the ending when he and Dennis are drinking a beer together in the car (that is so 80's), had me and my friend cracking up for about five minutes straight. In a serious and completely overdramatic tone of voice, he says, "A toast...to death!" Isn't that the absolutely worst thing you could toast to (besides flesh-eating bacteria, I guess)?