Friday, May 24, 2013



Christine is my favourite kind of horror movie. It doesn't over-explain, it doesn't reveal the secret origins of the monster, it doesn't bother with scientific realism in its storytelling. What we have here is a simple story about an evil car. In other hands that might've turned out rather silly, but from the Stephen King book and under John Carpenter's direction it packages into a very entertaining modern horror classic. It's on of those strange examples of a villain-centric tales where you find yourself cheering for the bad guy. Weirder still in this case since that character happens to be a car.

I hadn't seen the movie for a very long time. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only time that I've seen it was on VHS in all of it's ingloriously low visual quality and chopped up pan-and-scan sub-par presentation style. So, to see it now in glorious re-mastered DCP style, with a crisp colourful image and sharp quality sound was just great. Christine with her bright red paint job and shiny chrome attachments (I'm not a car guy...I can't give you specifics) looked glorious, and the soundtrack of classic rock and roll was perfectly crisp and clear. I know that a number of traditionalists lament the extinction of film, but presentations like this one make me confident that the digital future is just fine.

Christine rolls onto the Mayfair screen tonight (Friday May 24th at 11:30pm) and Sunday May 26th at 8:30pm.

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