Dozens of Stephen King’s literary works have received film and TV adaptations, but modern horror master Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) recently highlighted an often overlooked adaptation that definitely deserves more attention in Cristina. King produced more than 100 novels, collections, screenplays and other diverse works, and some were adapted into great films of all time, such as The Shawshank Redemption or The green mile. Others were complete misfires, such as Silver Bullet or Firestarter. Still others have been reevaluated recently and are evolving into cult classics.
Mike Flanagan recently talked about the most underrated King adaptations and highlighted four very specific choices, some of which make more sense than others. Flanagan’s opinion on the matter certainly means something, given that he himself has produced some incredible King adaptations, including Doctor Sleep, Geraldo’s gameand the next Chuck’s Life. Of the four choices he gave, one really stands out as an underrated adaptation that deserves much more attention than it has historically received.
Mike Flanagan is right about John Carpenter’s Christine
The Adaptation of King’s Famous Car Story Deserves More Love
The four adaptations named by Flanagan were The night flyer, The dead zone, Storm of the Centuryand John Carpenter Cristina. The other three options are debatable, given that The night flyer is not widely accepted as a good film, and both The dead zone and Storm of the Century have received much praise over the years. Cristinaon the other hand, it was legitimately underrated when it was releasedand slowly started to gain value in recent years. At that time, rumors swirled about another adaptation, although nothing official came to fruition.
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Cristina Main details |
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Release date |
Budget |
Gross box office |
RT Tomatometer Score |
RT Popcorn Meter Score |
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December 9, 1983 |
US$10 million |
US$21 million |
72% |
64% |
After its release, Cristina did modest box office, and although it received decent reviews, was treated as a “decent but not great” horror film. It has 72% in Rotten tomatoes‘ Tomatometer, but only 64% on the audience-based Popcornmeter. While Rotten Tomatoes scores are not the definitive measure of a film’s quality, they do provide a good summary of overall sentiment and e.g. Cristina this feeling is decidedly tepid.
However, it deserves much more love than that, and its evolution into a cult classic is an indicator of that. Cristina It received criticism for not being scary enough, and while that may be true, it wasn’t the intention. Cristina has less to do with straight-up Pennywise-style supernatural scares. THIS or Kurt Barlow from ‘Salem Lotand yet another metaphor for obsession and its consequences. The film is filled with excellent visuals from Carpenter, is well acted, and deserves a much higher ranking among King’s film adaptations.
Why Stephen King Wasn’t a Fan of Christine
King found the film “boring”
Stephen King himself would disagree with this assessment, however. Stephen King was notably critical of some of his adaptationsperhaps most famously Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining starring Jack Nicholson. Once upon a time, King even grouped Cristina inside with The Shining when discussing his aversion to cinema. Node Dreamcatcher: the shooting script book, King noted:
Several honorable adaptations have emerged from this thirty-year celluloid blast… and the best of them have had few of the elements I’m best known for: science fiction, fantasy, the supernatural, and moments of pure grossness. Books containing these elements have often become forgettable or downright embarrassing films. Others – I’m thinking mainly of Christine and Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining – should have been good, but just… well, they just aren’t. In fact, they’re kind of boring. Speaking for myself, I’d rather have something bad than boring.
King echoed several critics’ concerns about the nightmare car movie, that is, that the film is really boring. While it’s certainly worth hearing King’s opinion regarding any film adaptations of his works, in the case of Cristina he may look down on a generally high-quality film.