Synopsis
In 1957 Detroit, several off-white 1958 Plymouth Fury models are shown lined up on an assembly line. In the middle of the line of cars, a lone bright red and white Fury stands in contrast to the others. The Plymouth's malevolent character is established when one worker is injured when the car's hood slams shut on his hand while working on the car, and another is apparently choked to death inside after dropping some cigar ash on to one of the seats.
21 years later, in 1978, Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham (Keith Gordon) is a nerdy teen boy with only one friend, a childhood companion and popular jock named Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell). Arnie's life begins to change when he gets a confrontation from the school bully Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) who threatens Arnie with a switchblade and gets expelled. Arnie's life also begins to change when he buys the rusty red-white Fury from crusty bachelor George LeBay (Roberts Blossom) for $250, even though the vehicle is in serious need of repair. Dennis fruitlessly attempts to dissuade Arnie from purchasing the car (which LeBay has informed the pair is named "Christine"), pointing out that the odometer reads over 93,000 miles, which Dennis surmises is likely half the actual total. Enamored, Arnie ignores his friend and hastily writes LeBay a check, and he proceeds to drive home with Dennis following in his blue 1968 Dodge Charger. After his parents refuse to let Arnie park Christine in the family's driveway for not informing them that he is going to buy a car, he is forced to store her at a local garage, run by the grouchy Will Darnell (Robert Prosky).
As Arnie begins to restore Christine to her original beauty, Arnie sits behind the wheel and the radio which only seems to play 1950s era rock and roll, begins playing the Johnny Ace song "Pledging My Love", assuring Arnie that his feelings of admiration for Christine are requited. Those in his life notice changes in his attitude and appearance with the more time he spends with the car. Initially shy and timid, Arnie develops a cocky arrogance and has taken on a bit of a sinister appearance; he no longer wears his thick glasses and begins dressing in all black clothing. Dennis's concern for his friend deepens when he is informed by George LeBay that Roland's (George's brother's) wife died in Christine of carbon monoxide poisoning. George LeBay also reveals that Rolands's young daughter had been killed in the car.
During a football game, Dennis spies a newly restored Christine and is shocked to see Arnie with Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul). The distraction causes him to be hit while leaping for a pass and he is seriously injured by another player, placing him in the hospital. After Buddy sees Arnie in Christine at Dennis's football game, he is extremely jealous. The gang follows Arnie back to Will's garage, where they severely vandalize and crush the newly restored Christine at night (even one of them, Moochie, relieving himself on the dashboard), leaving her totally ruined. Arnie sees the wreck of Christine the next day and is shocked that all the work he put into restoring the car has been destroyed. Although his parents want to buy him a new car as he has become obsessed, Arnie is determined to restore the car again. The next day, as he looks the wreck over, he turns his back and hears metal creaking behind him; he turns and sees that Christine's engine is fully restored. Stepping away, Arnie smiles and says, "Okay...show me." Christine's headlights flicker on, and she then comes to life and fully restores herself to mint condition.
The next night, Christine chases and kills Moochie, a member of Buddy's gang, by crushing him against a wall. A few days later at school, Arnie receives a visit from Detective Rudolph Junkins (Harry Dean Stanton) who suspects that Arnie killed Moochie in a fit of revenge against those who vandalized Christine. However, he is unable to produce adequate proof because even though Christine is badly damaged in the attack on Moochie, she regenerated herself to showroom quality afterward. Christine then seeks out and gruesomely kills individual members of the gang who destroyed her, one by one. The spree climaxes when Christine confronts the last three remaining members of the gang, Don Vandenberg (Stuart Charno), Richie Trelawney (Steven Tash) and Buddy himself, at a service station. Christine pushes Buddy's grey 1967 Chevrolet Camaro into Richie, who has sought refuge inside the garage, and its fuel tank ruptures in the collision and gasoline spills onto the floor. Buddy's Camaro catches fire which quickly ignites the fuel on the floor, setting the building ablaze and killing Don. Terrified, Buddy flees the station on foot and as a burning Christine gives chase, she runs over the station's gas pumps, causing the building to explode. In one of the film's more memorable sequences, Christine, still in flames, chases Buddy down and runs him over leaving his burning corpse on the road. After the attacks, Christine returns to the garage and subsequently kills Will Darnell by crushing him against the steering wheel, asphyxiating him. After an incident in which Arnie's girlfriend Leigh is almost choked to death by Christine at a drive-in theater, she beseeches Dennis for help. Leigh and Dennis resolve to try and save Arnie, unaware that Christine is unwilling to give up Arnie without a fight.
On New Year's Eve Dennis and Leigh reason that the only way to stop Christine and save Arnie is to destroy the car. Dennis then says that he is going to Arnie's, and Leigh urges him to be careful. After she leaves, Arnie pulls up to Dennis's house in Christine, picks him up, and the pair drive off. During the ride to Arnie's house, Arnie displays erratic and reckless behavior (drinking beer while driving, playing chicken with other motorists, and taking his hands off the wheel), and tells Dennis about how strong the bond is between Christine and him. During the ride, Dennis sees that the odometer now reads less than 58,000 miles and is still rolling backward.
The next day, Dennis goes to the school parking lot and scratches "Darnell's Tonight" into Christine's hood, and drives off with Leigh. The pair go to Darnell's where they wait in a bulldozer. Dennis tells Leigh to wait in the office so she can shut the door after Christine arrives, trapping the vehicle. When Leigh exits the bulldozer and heads for the office, Christine's headlights suddenly blaze out of the darkness from under a pile of garbage, and the car charges at Leigh. As Christine crashes into Darnell's office in an attempt to kill Leigh, Arnie is ejected through Christine's windshield and is impaled on a shard of glass, fatally wounding him. He survives just long enough to admire Christine one last time and lovingly caress her front bumper. Enraged, Christine proceeds to attack Leigh. Dennis counters in the bulldozer and he proceeds to fight Christine, who is playing "Pledging My Love" at top volume on her radio. As she is launching her final assault on Leigh, Dennis drives the bulldozer up on to the car's back, stopping her and apparently killing her. Leigh climbs into the cab and she and Dennis embrace, but Christine springs back to life and again begins to heal herself. Dennis then finishes driving over her with the bulldozer, and her headlights flicker and then go out for good, finally killing her.
The scene cuts immediately to the next day; Dennis and Leigh are seen along with Detective Junkins at a wrecking yard, where Christine has been crushed into a cube by a metal compactor, apparently finally destroying her. Leigh and Dennis lament that they were unable to save Arnie and as they reflect on the events, loud 1950s rock music begins to play. Startled, Leigh and Dennis look up and see a worker in a hard hat playing the music on a boombox as he walks into view from behind some other wrecked cars. Leigh exclaims "God, I hate rock and roll." The film ends with the camera zooming in on the crushed cube that was formerly Christine and a piece of the grill slowly begins to bend, indicating that the car's consciousness might have remained intact
Read more about this topic: Christine (1983 Film)