No doubt if you’re a horror fan, you’ve seen John Carpenter’s snap case adaptation for Stephen King’s 1983 classic novel, Christine. I have my beat-up paperback edition which my mom got for me in advance of taking me to see the film on Black Friday more than 40 years ago. I still smirk at King’s dedication of Christine, his love letter to 1950s street machines and the tunes which spun through those static-filled radio consoles, to horror director icon George Romero and his late wife, actress and film Christine Forrester Romero. And the Burg. Pittsburgh, where most of Romero’s films are set. Yinzers unite!

I’m grinning right now riffling through the paperback my mom bestowed upon me with Carpenter’s synth-hammering Christine score pounding like a creepy metronome while I write this. The DVD edition of this film sits on deck, and I’m grinning a second time thinking of the time I yanked it out of the player with my son (age 7 at the time, I believe) in the room watching. Both the novel and the film set precedents for profanity at the time of their releases, including the most innovative (if vulgar to an extreme for some women) with a lewd play upon the name of our chief protagonist-turned-antagonist, Arnie Cunningham.

Christine is a story about obsession exploited from alienation via a supernatural blast from the past, a demonized, eight-cylinder, 290 horsepower ride out of Hell itself, a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury.

Plymouth no longer a thing in the automotive industry, they were a force to be reckoned with in the 1950s and Sixties, the Fury being a sub-series bred from the Plymouth Belvedere, produced from 1955 through 1989. The bumper wing guards and vertical tail fins mark the Fury and its competitors from an era where vehicle manufacturers still valued class and elegance. Except, maybe the Edsel, which my parents still groan at today with derision.

The two-door Fury with its white top roofing came with a (then-new) torsion bar front suspension system and twin four-barrel carburetors. There was the optional “Golden Commando,” lifting the thrust to 305 horsepower, dubbed a V-800 Dual Fury.

It’s that bracketry of the front grille and aluminum trim on the Plymouth Fury which perhaps attracted King to use one for his novel, a more lowbrow, violent and teen-targeted extension of the phantom car premise posited in the “You Drive” episode from The Twilight Zone.

The latter being a driverless 1956 Ford Fairlane sedan, it’s easy to see why the Plymouth Fury comes off much more sinister. Especially in a red so vivid it implies death, sin and sex. A four-wheel girlfriend for nerd-turned-hustler Arnie Cunningham set in jealousy mode against his improbable winning over a real, fleshly lady love, Leigh Cabot. I always loved King’s dichotomy here, since so many guys refer to their prized cars in the female vernacular. Some freakazoids actually making out with the cars themselves. True story.

Even loonier when the “girl” is a galvanized engine of destruction which (or who, in Christine’s case) can rebound and rebuild itself from severe vandalism by story bully, the tasteless Buddy Repperton and his dunderhead thugs. Someone’s gonna pay, be it a rival for affection or ruthless street trash. Cue Carpenter’s pealing synth and pumping death march.

Hard to think of such gory mayhem back in 1958 with the Fury being peddled to middle class white America…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.