Christine (King novel)

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"She had the smell of a brand new car, and that's just about the finest smell in the world, except maybe for pussy." —Roland D. LeBay to Arnie Cunningham regarding the worst auto purchase in history. For both of them.

A 1983 novel by Stephen King that was also adapted into a feature film in the same year by John Carpenter. The basic premise is that the most unpopular guy in a Pittsburgh area high school buys his first car, much like any other teenager the world over. The problem is that his car is extremely and psychotically Yandere for him. The novel details his transition from normal, if nerdy and unhappy, teenager into a somewhat popular greaser loner, and eventually into a lonely psychotic as the the car and the ghost of the previous owner begin to exact an ever increasing amount of control over him.

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This book contains examples of:

• A Boy And His Evil Car: Arnie and Christine.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The eponymous Christine.
• Asshole Victim: The bullies who vandalize Christine.
• Badass Driver: Christine herself.
  • Also Arnie, as it is later revealed that he was driving, at least part of the time.
• Bad to The Bone: Christine's theme song, sort of.
• Big Bad: Christine.
• Black Dude Dies First: In the movie, at least.
• The Bro Code: Dennis's violation does not go unpunished.
• Car Fu
• Car Meets House: Christine disposes of one victim this way.
• Cool Car: Why, Christine of course. Yes, she's evil through and through. So what? The 1958 Plymouth Fury, Autumn red.
• Delinquents: Buddy Repperton and his gang.
• Downer Ending: Arnie and his parents are dead, along with eight other people. Dennis has broken up with Leigh. Christine is STILL OUT THERE.
• Did Not Get the Girl: It's revealed in the epilogue that Dennis and Leigh didn't end up together.
• Drives Like Crazy: Taken to new extremes by Christine.
• Feud Episode: First there was Christine. Leigh came later.
• Finger Twitching Revival: Or, in this case, a chrome-twitching revival.
• Flash Back: Dennis Guilder is writing the story down four years later.
• Fridge Logic: Something a lot simpler then the supernatural car. Why Moochie didn't simply leap over Christine's hood when she jammed herself into the narrow loading dock, instead of just stand there and get slowly cut in half?
  • For that matter, why does the second guy try to outrun the car on foot down a straight, paved highway instead of maybe trying some offroad slopes?
• Hair Trigger Temper: Roland LeBay. When every description of you includes the words "unending fury," you are made for this trope.
• Half the Man He Used To Be: Moochie Welch is cut in half between Christine's front bumper and a building in the movie.
• Healing Factor: Christine has it. Up to the point of returning from a burned-out wreck to mint condition within minutes.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Arnie and Dennis. A nerd and a jock.
• Homicide Machines
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: In the film, the final showdown occurs on New Year's Eve/Day.
• I Die Free: Arnie died keeping Roland from possessing him.
• Infernal Retaliation: In the movie, Christine chases Buddy Reperton and one of his cronies to a gas station where they wanted to meet a third. She crashes into Buddy's Camaro, shoves it into the gas station, and causes it to explode in a spectacular fireball. Buddy manages to rescue himself and believes that Christine is destroyed in the flames. But she backs Out of the Inferno, burning all over, chases him down the road, and eventually runs over him, leaving his burning corpse lying on the asphalt.
• The Ladys Favor: Before the final fight with Christine, Leigh gives a scarf to Dennis to wear around his arm.
• Love At First Sight: Arnie and, yes, Christine. When Arnie first sees the car, Dennis describes him like this: "he had been like a man who meets a showgirl, indulges in a whirlwind courtship, and ends up with a hangover and a new wife on Monday morning. It had been... well... like love at first sight."
• Meaningful Name: Christine is a Plymouth Fury.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Buddy Reperton and Richie Trelawney look a lot like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards respectively which becomes particularly obvious in a scene where they are driving in a car, and "Beast of Burden" is playing on the radio.
  • I always thought that Buddy looked more like John Travolta.
• Not Quite Dead: Christine. Ever.
  • Her unending fury drives her on.
• Post Modern Magik: The haunted car is kind of an example.
• Science Marches On: A crucial plot point is Leigh almost dying when she chokes on a hamburger in Christine because Arnie forgot about the Heimlich maneuver's existence and only gave her ineffective back blows, echoing an incident described earlier that involved Rita LeBay choking on a hamburger in Christine and dying when Roland LeBay gave her back blows because the Heimlich maneuver had not been invented yet. She is saved by the hitchhiker they picked up earlier, who gives her the Heimlich maneuver. Modern-day readers who are CPR certified will know that the care prescribed for a conscious choking victim involves a combination of back blows and abdominal thrusts.
• Sealed Evil in A Can
• Seemingly Wholesome Fifties Car
• Split Personality Takeover
• Sweater Girl: Leigh.
• Switching POV: The first part is narrated by Dennis, the second part is told by an omniscient third-person narrator and mostly focuses on Arnie, and the third part is narrated by Dennis again.
• The Seventies / The Fifties: The novel is set in 1978-79, but Christine often turns time back to 1959 (the Nostalgic Fifties version), complete with Seemingly Wholesome Fifties Girl and a radio that plays Nothing but Hits.
  • To be more exact the radio in the 70s plays nothing but hits from the 50s.
• Took a Level In Badass: Arnie.
• Vehicle Title
• Vehicular Assault
• Woman Scorned: ... Yes.
• Yandere: Christine.