The 1983 Stephen King adaptation Cristina I’ve seen director John Carpenter somehow make the premise of a killer car scary, and the horror film’s ending proves that story still holds up. The 1983 Refrigerator Cristina had a potentially silly premise in the story of a bullied teenager who takes violent revenge on his tormentors via a cursed car. However, director John Carpenter’s adaptation of Cristina managed to make this story scary, sad, and emotionally impactful as Arnie became obsessed with his car, Christine, while Christine tore apart anyone who came between them. Arnie’s obsession gradually alienated him from his friends and family and led to a terrible end.
While Hollywood rarely gets Stephen King adaptations right, sometimes the film industry manages to successfully capture the balance between camp and genuine horror found in the author’s work. Stephen King is a legendary horror author, but the writer’s prolific output sometimes leads critics and even fans to accuse him of phoning in some of his lesser villains. Since some of King’s stories involve cursed fingers, haunted toy monkeys, and murderous oil spills, this is not an unfair claim. However, the author has a knack for somehow making even seemingly silly horror premises work, thanks to his engaging characters and captivating ending. Cristina prove it.
How Arnie Dies at the End of Christine
Arnie is thrown through the windshield
In Cristina’At the end of the film, Arnie goes down with his beloved car. He is thrown through the windshield as Christine tries to run over her love interest, Leigh. At a time referenced by End of Halloween Years later, Arnie tries to stop his ex-girlfriend Leigh and his ex-friend Dennis from destroying Christine by any means necessary. In the process, Christine hits Leigh and throws Arnie through the windshield, killing him when he is impaled on broken glass. This death was so memorable that 2013 Carrie The remake used the same image to kill off its main villain, the hateful bully Chris.
In King’s version of the novel CristinaArnie dies while trying to resist the possession of Christine’s former owner, a serial killer. His last acts have him return to his old self as he tries to help Leigh and Dennis destroy the car, but this was scrapped in Carpenter’s film adaptation. As Jack Torrance in Kubrick’s version of The ShiningCarpenter’s version of the antihero King doesn’t have any last-minute moments of redemption. Instead, Arnie stays by Christine’s side until the end, even using his last ounce of strength to reach out and touch the hood of the car as he dies. This proves that Arnie wasn’t as innocent as he seemed.
The car is still alive at the end of Christine
The heroes are unable to destroy the demonic vehicle
Christine doesn’t care about Arnie as much as he values ​​his car. The car continues to try to kill Leigh and Dennis after their death, only stopping when the pair manage to corner the vehicle and drive over it with a bulldozer. As if that wasn’t enough, Leigh and Dennis doubled down, bringing Christine’s remains to the scrapyard the next day and crushing them into a cube. Despite all this effort, the pair still feel uneasy when they hear the 1950s rock and roll songs that signaled Christine’s approach begin playing in the junkyard.
Although 50s rock music only comes from a nearby stereo, the car’s grille moves when Leigh and Dennis look away. So viewers can rest assured that whatever spirit possessed Christine is not done yet. Producer Bryan Fuller’s next film Cristina Remake offers further proof that you can’t keep a killer car down, as Carpenter’s killer automobile is ready to go again. It’s not yet clear whether this film will be a direct remake or a sequel to the original, but CristinaThe ending leaves the option of a sequel on the table, as the eponymous villain survives his encounter with destruction.
Why Arnie chose Christine over Leigh and Dennis
Owned car changes your personality
Arnie resented Dennis for his high school football success, while feeling that Leigh only expressed interest in him after Christine changed her personality. He was seduced by the allure of the possessed car and, as a result, forgot who his human friends were. As a result, it wasn’t too surprising when Arnie chose Christine over Leigh and Dennis in Cristinais ending. However, the fact that Stephen King’s killer car didn’t care when Arnie died implies that Christine herself never cared about its human owner. While Arnie saw himself and the car as a lethally effective murderous duo, Christine saw it as a means of correcting herself.
How Christine’s Ending Changes the Novel’s Climax
There are many differences between the film and the book
In the original book, Christine is destroyed during a fight with another apparently sentient supernatural vehicle, Petunia the tanker. In the film, the car is crushed by a regular track loader. Furthermore, Arnie’s parents are much worse in the novel, acting almost as abusive as his attackers. It’s easy to see why this was excised CristinaThe film adaptation of Arnie, as the story could have been very pessimistic and dark if Arnie’s home life and school life were hell. While Cristina is one of Carpenter’s best horror films, mainly because the adaptation tones down the excesses of the original novel.
Arnie’s parents are not particularly understanding or supportive Cristinafilm adaptation, so it’s easy to root for him against his bullies. If his parents and attackers were outright abusive, viewers probably wouldn’t make it to the film’s third act, where he exacts violent revenge on his tormentors via his possessed car. Carpenter’s film needed to lighten Arnie’s life story to make the plot less dark and the adaptation achieved this by abandoning this dark subplot. Meanwhile, getting rid of sillier flourishes like the paranormal Petunia truck also ensured that Cristina it never felt too ridiculous, allowing Carpenter to strike a perfect balance between camp and scares.
What Christine’s End Really Means
The subtext is a story of the follies of adolescence
CristinaThe entire story of is about how adolescence changes a person’s personality and the film addresses the dangers of getting caught up in the pursuit of fancy material possessions, like a muscle car, instead of valuing friendships and human relationships. Arnie’s failure to appreciate his friendship with Dennis and his unfair suspicion of Leigh cause him to seek comfort from Christine, further alienating him from his loved ones. Even if his car were supernatural, Arnie would already be abandoning good friends in favor of a status symbol. CristinaStephen King’s brutal ending allows the Stephen King adaptation to show how this path can lead to horror and death.
How Christine’s Ending Was Received
The final scenes were simple but effective
General, Cristina It was well received by critics and audiences, although it is not considered one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time. Director John Carpenter’s 1983 film currently sits on Rotten Tomatoes with a 72% audience score and 64% audience rating – definitely commendable, but nowhere near the heights reached by many other Stephen King films or classic Carpenter films like The thing.
The ending for Cristina takes into account some of the reviews, both positive and negative, though rarely in a way that highlights the final scenes as the part of the film that made it so memorable (or, on the other hand, an aspect that significantly diminished the enjoyment). As with the source material, much praise from Cristina is given to the concept itself, which in the case of the film also means how Carpenter brought the titular demon car to life.
Writing for the Chicago sun, critic Roger Ebert explained that the end of Cristina it didn’t matter much, as it’s ultimately an easy-to-watch horror whose plot (and its resolution) is secondary to its tone:
“By the end of the film, Christine has developed such a formidable personality that we are actually taking sides during the duel with a bulldozer. This is the kind of movie where you come out with a goofy smile, get in the car and dump rubber on Eisenhower.”
Cristina, whether on screen or page, it’s not a particularly deep or complex story. The audience and readers are free to enjoy the novelty of the evil car concept. The final moments may have been relatively thin in terms of significant plot twists or last-minute game-changing plot developments, but had the final scenes of Cristina were deep or complex, they wouldn’t understand why viewers wanted to watch in the first place.