In 1957, in Detroit, a red Plymouth Fury is built and is the cause of two accidents, one of them fatal, while still in the assembly line
Twenty-one years later, the outcast and bullied nerd Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham is getting a ride with his best and only friend Dennis Guilder and he sees the wrecked car in a junkyard
Arnie immediately falls in love with the car and calls it Christine,brings the car to a repair shop of the despicable Will Darnell and works hard to restore the classic car
While he works in the restoration, he changes his personality to a cocky teenager and he dates the most beautiful girl in the high-school, Leigh Cabot
Soon Arnie becomes selfish and jealous of the supernatural Christine that kills everyone that is a threat to them
The supposed budget fir this classic film was $9,700,000 (estimated) while it grossed $21,200,000 in the usa
According to Bill Phillips on the DVD Documentary, the movie technically didn't have enough violence to justify an "R" rating. But they were afraid that if the movie went out with a PG rating (PG-13 didn't exist yet) nobody would go to see it. So he purposely inserted the word "fuck" and its derivatives in order to get the "R" rating. He then recalls that they were criticized at the time for their use of the word
When Christine hunts down the members of Buddy Repperton's gang, her windows are blacked out. This is presumably to give Christine a "sinister" appearance, but also, more practically, to conceal the stunt driver. However, this reportedly made it difficult for the driver to see, since these scenes were all filmed at night
To simulate the car regenerating itself, hydraulic pumps were installed on the inside of some of the film's numerous Plymouth Fury "stunt doubles", a mock-up in plastic that looked more like metal on camera than actual metal as it bent and deformed. These pumps were attached to cables, which were in turn attached to the cars' bodywork and when they compressed, they would "suck" the paneling inwards. Footage of the inward crumpling body was then reversed, giving the appearance of the car spontaneously retaking form
According to Keith Gordon on the DVD Commentary, he kept having trouble with Christine's TorqueFlite automatic transmission control,He says that it would routinely take several tries to put the transmission in gear
The opening scene, which shows Christine being "born" in Detroit, was added in for the movie; it was used to explain the origin of Christine's evil nature, which had been changed from the original Stephen King novel
Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role but ended up choosing Footloose (1984) instead
Keith Gordon (who plays Arnie) says on a DVD extra that he pretended the car was a woman, so wherever he touched the car, he imagined which part of a woman the car was
Screenwriter Bill Phillips and rocker George Thorogood filmed a cameo appearance as the junkyard workers who compress Christine and dropped the cube at the end; the sequence was cut because neither could act very well
The license plate of Christine reads begins with "CQB" which is an acronym for "Close Quarters Battle"
Christine is said to be a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which had similar panels and trim to the 1957 model
The possible origin of the killer car's name could possibly be from Christine (1958), another movie called Christine which was made in 1958, around the same time the Plymouth Fury was made
According to the filmmakers in the DVD documentary, 28 Plymouth Furys were purchased and restored for the film
A few were "showcase" cars that were used whenever Christine is just sitting there "looking pretty" or whenever Arnie is driving her
Twenty-one years later, the outcast and bullied nerd Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham is getting a ride with his best and only friend Dennis Guilder and he sees the wrecked car in a junkyard
Arnie immediately falls in love with the car and calls it Christine,brings the car to a repair shop of the despicable Will Darnell and works hard to restore the classic car
While he works in the restoration, he changes his personality to a cocky teenager and he dates the most beautiful girl in the high-school, Leigh Cabot
Soon Arnie becomes selfish and jealous of the supernatural Christine that kills everyone that is a threat to them
The supposed budget fir this classic film was $9,700,000 (estimated) while it grossed $21,200,000 in the usa
According to Bill Phillips on the DVD Documentary, the movie technically didn't have enough violence to justify an "R" rating. But they were afraid that if the movie went out with a PG rating (PG-13 didn't exist yet) nobody would go to see it. So he purposely inserted the word "fuck" and its derivatives in order to get the "R" rating. He then recalls that they were criticized at the time for their use of the word
When Christine hunts down the members of Buddy Repperton's gang, her windows are blacked out. This is presumably to give Christine a "sinister" appearance, but also, more practically, to conceal the stunt driver. However, this reportedly made it difficult for the driver to see, since these scenes were all filmed at night
To simulate the car regenerating itself, hydraulic pumps were installed on the inside of some of the film's numerous Plymouth Fury "stunt doubles", a mock-up in plastic that looked more like metal on camera than actual metal as it bent and deformed. These pumps were attached to cables, which were in turn attached to the cars' bodywork and when they compressed, they would "suck" the paneling inwards. Footage of the inward crumpling body was then reversed, giving the appearance of the car spontaneously retaking form
According to Keith Gordon on the DVD Commentary, he kept having trouble with Christine's TorqueFlite automatic transmission control,He says that it would routinely take several tries to put the transmission in gear
The opening scene, which shows Christine being "born" in Detroit, was added in for the movie; it was used to explain the origin of Christine's evil nature, which had been changed from the original Stephen King novel
Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role but ended up choosing Footloose (1984) instead
Keith Gordon (who plays Arnie) says on a DVD extra that he pretended the car was a woman, so wherever he touched the car, he imagined which part of a woman the car was
Screenwriter Bill Phillips and rocker George Thorogood filmed a cameo appearance as the junkyard workers who compress Christine and dropped the cube at the end; the sequence was cut because neither could act very well
The license plate of Christine reads begins with "CQB" which is an acronym for "Close Quarters Battle"
Christine is said to be a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which had similar panels and trim to the 1957 model
The possible origin of the killer car's name could possibly be from Christine (1958), another movie called Christine which was made in 1958, around the same time the Plymouth Fury was made
According to the filmmakers in the DVD documentary, 28 Plymouth Furys were purchased and restored for the film
A few were "showcase" cars that were used whenever Christine is just sitting there "looking pretty" or whenever Arnie is driving her