#1 New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller Stephen King’s classic tale of an evil car that brings hellish terror to its new owner.
It’s love at first sight for high school student Arnie Cunningham when he and his best friend Dennis Guilder spot the dilapidated 1958 red-and-white Plymouth Fury for sale—dubbed “Christine” by its original cantankerous owner—rusting away on a front lawn of their suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood. Dennis knows that Arnie’s never had much luck in the popularity department, or really taken an interest in owning a car…but Christine quickly changes all that.
Arnie suddenly has the newfound confidence to stick up for himself, going as far as dating the most beautiful girl at Libertyville High—transfer student Leigh Cabot—even as a mysteriously restored Christine systematically and terrifyingly consumes every aspect of Arnie’s life. Dennis and Leigh soon realize that they must uncover the awful truth behind a car with a horrifying and murderous history. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and heaven help anyone who gets in Christine’s way…
PROLOGUE
This is the story of a lover's triangle, I suppose you'd say — Arnie Cunningham, Leigh Cabot, and, of course, Christine. But I want you to understand that Christine was there first. She was Arnie's first love, and while I wouldn't presume to say for sure (not from whatever heights of wisdom I've attained in my twenty-two years, anyway), I think she was his only true love. So I call what happened a tragedy.
Arnie and I grew up on the same block together, went to Owen Andrews Grammar School and Darby Junior High together, then to Libertyville High together. I guess I was the main reason Arnie didn't just get gobbled up in high school. I was a big guy there — yeah, I know that doesn't mean donkeyshit; five years after you've graduated you can't even cadge a free beer on having been captain of the football and baseball teams and an All-Conference swimmer — but because I was, Arnie at least never got killed. He took a lot of abuse, but he never got killed.
He was a loser, you know. Every high school has to have at least two; it's like a national law. One male, one female. Everyone's dumping ground. Having a bad day? Flunked a big test? Had an argument with your folks and got grounded for the weekend? No problem. Just find one of those poor sad sacks that go scurrying around the halls like criminals before the home-room bell and walk it right to him. And sometimes they do get killed, in every important way except the physical; sometimes they find something to hold onto and they survive. Arnie had me. And then he had Christine. Leigh came later.
I just wanted you to understand that.
Arnie was a natural out. He was out with the jocks because he was scrawny — five-ten and about a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet in all his clothes plus a pair of Desert Driver boots. He was out with the high school intellectuals (a pretty 'out' group themselves in a burg like Libertyville) because he had no specialty. Arnie was smart, but his brains didn't go naturally to any one thing . . . unless it was automotive mechanics. He was great at that stuff. When it came to cars, the kid was some kind of a goofy born natural. But his parents, who both taught at the University in Horlicks, could not see their son, who had scored in the top five per cent on his Stanford-Binet, taking the shop courses. He was lucky they let him take Auto Shop I, II, and III. He had to battle his butt off to get that. He was out with the druggies because he didn't do dope. He was out with the macho pegged-jeans-and-Lucky-Strikes group because he didn't do booze and if you hit him hard enough, he'd cry.
Oh yes, and he was out with the girls. His glandular machinery had gone totally bananas. I mean, Arnie was pimple city. He washed his face maybe five times a day, took maybe two dozen showers a week, and tried every cream and nostrum known to modern science. None of it did any good. Arnie's face looked like a loaded pizza, and he was going to have one of those pitted, poxy faces forever.
I liked him just the same. He had a quirky sense of humour and a mind that never stopped asking questions, playing games, and doing funky little calisthenics. It was Arnie who showed me how to make an ant farm when I was seven, and we spent just about one whole summer watching those little buggers, fascinated by their industry and their deadly seriousness. It was Arnie's suggestion when we were ten that we sneak out one night and put a load of dried horseapples from the Route 17 Stables under the gross plastic horse on the lawn of the Libertyville Motel just over the line in Monroeville. Arnie knew about chess first. He knew about poker first. He showed me how to maximize my Scrabble score. On rainy days right up until the time I fell in love (well, sort of — she was a cheerleader with a fantastic body and I sure was in love with that, although when Arnie pointed out that her mind had all the depth and resonance of a Shaun Cassidy 45, I couldn't really tell him he was full of shit, because he wasn't), it was Arnie I thought of first, because Arnie knew how to maximize rainy days just like he knew how to maximize Scrabble scores, Maybe I that's one of the ways you recognize really lonely people . . . they can always think of something neat to do on rainy days. You can always call them up. They're always home. Fucking always.
For my part, I taught him how to swim. I worked out with him and got him to eat his green vegetables so he could build up that scrawny bod a little. I got him a job on a road crew the year before our senior year at Libertyville High and for that one we both battled our butts off with his parents, who saw themselves as great friends of the farm workers in California and the steel-workers in the Burg, but who were horrified at the idea of their gifted son (top five per cent on his Stanford-Binet, remember) getting his wrists dirty and his neck red.
Then, near the end of that summer vacation, Arnie saw Christine for the first time and fell in love with her. I was with him that day — we were on our way home from work — and I would testify on the matter before the Throne of Almighty God if called upon to do so. Brother, he fell and he fell hard. It could have been funny if it hadn't been so sad, and if it hadn't gotten scary as quick as it did. It could have been funny if it hadn't been so bad.
How bad was it?
It was bad from the start. And it, got worse in a hurry.
Release Date: December 9, 1983
Release Time: 110 minutes
Director: John Carpenter
Cast:
Keith Gordon as Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham
John Stockwell as Dennis Guilder
Alexandra Paul as Leigh Cabot
Robert Prosky as Will Darnell
Harry Dean Stanton as Detective Rudolph Junkins
Christine Belford as Regina Cunningham
Roberts Blossom as George LeBay
William Ostrander as Clarence "Buddy" Repperton
David Spielberg as Mr. Casey
Malcolm Danare as Peter "Moochie" Welch
Steven Tash as Richard "Ritchie" Trelawney
Stuart Charno as Don Vandenberg
Kelly Preston as Roseanne
Mark Poppel as Chuck
Robert Darnell as Michael Cunningham
Bruce French as Mr. Smith
Douglas Warhit as Bemis
Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1971, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co., accepted the novel Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 50 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers. King is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to the American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.
Stephen lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. They are regular contributors to a number of charities including many libraries and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities.
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