Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 21

Part 3: Chapter 43

After getting his parents and his sister out of the house, Dennis prepares for Leigh’s visit. Both Darnell and Vandenberg’s deaths are big news on television and the newspapers. Dennis senses that things are coming to a head.

Leigh arrives, and the two FVKs (Fearless Vehicle Killers) begin to trade information. They talk about the change in Arnie’s personality, his use of LeBay’s word “shitters,” and his obsession and anger that is so close to LeBay’s own. Dennis tells Leigh about LeBay’s daughter and how she died. Leigh runs to the bathroom and throws up.

Later, Dennis shows Leigh two segments of the cast that was on his leg. Both pieces carry the name “Arnie Cunningham,” but only one of them, Dennis is sure, was actually written by his friend.

Dennis and Leigh seal their conspiracy — as well as their fates (though they don’t know this yet) — with a kiss…

One quick bit of housekeeping before we get into today’s chapter.

As I said before, we are back to good ol’ Dennis Guilder’s narration here in Part Three. King himself has said that the switch from first-person to third-person was somewhat forced on him. He had written himself into a corner with the football injury that Dennis sustained at the end of Part One. Though he tried many times to stick with Dennis’s perspective throughout Part Two, nothing worked. The only way for Dennis to learn what was happening was for him to learn it from visitors or television or newspapers. That isn’t very dramatic. So, he said, “To hell with it,” and switched to third-person.

I think it was the smart choice. Sticking with Dennis may have worked if Christine had remained a short story, but in a novel the reader needs action to carry them forward. The change does beg the question, however: does Dennis learn any of what we learned in Part Two? If so, how? At the beginning of the novel, Dennis’s narration is presented to us as if he were writing it all down or telling it to us directly like two friends bellied up to the bar. Part Two removes us from that intimate proximity. We get more of a bird’s eye view of Libertyville and Arnie and Christine. Can Part Two be ignored and still leave us with a satisfying story? We’d still have to learn somehow about the deaths of Moochie and Buddy and Darnell, about Arnie’s arrest, about Junkins and his investigation, but I think it could have been done. How? King used “non-fiction” asides in his first novel Carrie. I think Part Two could have been done in the same way.

Of course, who am I to second guess the King?

Moving on…

Dennis is catching up with his schoolwork when Leigh comes calling. He says that he picks up a copy of Esquire and tries to read an article entitled “The Next Vietnam” (377). Just like Dennis’s luck in reading it, I had none in finding it. The closest I came was an article by the same name written by Col. Fletcher Prouty.

Leroy Fletcher Prouty was the Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. A colonel in the United States Air Force, Prouty was a critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He also wrote extensively on the JFK assassination from the 1970s through 1990s. He was the inspiration for the character "X" (portrayed by Donald Sutherland) in Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991).

Prouty’s article “The Next Vietnam” was published in the September 1974 issue of men’s magazine Genesis. Somehow I don’t think Libertyville High has a subscription to that particular periodical.

If there is a reason that this chapter feels familiar, then you can probably thank the Netflix series Stranger Things. That show (especially the first season) owes a great debt to Stephen King’s work.

What we have here is the scene where separate characters come together to share information with one another. In much the same way as the kids and the adults in Stranger Things finally get their acts together long enough to exchange info, characters in many King novels do the same — the Fearless Vampire Killers in ‘Salem’s Lot, the kids (and their adult versions) in It. Here we have Dennis and Leigh finally debriefing one another about what they know and what they suspect about Christine. It’s a good scene!

One of the pieces of evidence that Dennis brings to the table is Arnie’s signature. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t think the two signatures are different enough to warrant Dennis and Leigh’s “gosh wow” reaction. I do like that we get actual signatures in the book. (I always like when the typeface in books changes or we get actual handwriting added to the printed words of the story.) I just think King and Co. could have made more of an effort to make them different.

Man, I am loving these single chapter days. Makes the drive so much nicer, don’cha think, Blog-o-weeners? Before we hit the next motel, I want us to talk about one more thing: icemakers.

When Leigh goes into the kitchen to get Dennis and herself a pop, she mentions that her family, too, has an automatic icemaker in their refrigerator. Man, growing up, I was always jealous of the kids whose families had them — that and the water dispenser. Holy smoke! So cool!

Dennis mentions that sometimes the icemaker goes out of control and starts shooting cubes every which way: “It’s like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. ‘Take that, you dirty rats!”

Who now?

Sadly, James Cagney is one of those Golden Age of Hollywood stars whose work is completely unknown to younger moviegoers. At the height of his fame in the 1930s he was probably the biggest movie star in the world. He could do it all — sing, dance, play it tough, play it soft, be dramatic, do comedy. White Heat is a film he made later in his career in 1949. In a way, he was playing a caricature of the type of gangster character he made famous at Warner Bros. in the 1930s. If you've ever heard someone yell out “Top of the world, Ma!” they are referencing the character of Cody Jarrett, the movies’ second most famous momma’s boy (behind only Norman Bates). The line that Dennis quotes is one of the lines that impressionists from Rich Little to John Byner made famous when doing a Jimmy Cagney bit. Just like Cary Grant never said “Judy, Judy, Judy,” Cagney never said “You dirty rat”… though it’s pretty close to the actual line from Taxi (1931).

Okay! We are at the motel, and I am looking forward to a hot shower and a cold beer. For tomorrow, read Part 3: Chapter 44. We’ve got more signatures to compare and contrast. We’ll discuss Shawun Cassidy, Andy Devine, and Broderick Crawford. (Boy… would those three make for a wacky sit-com!) We’ll also hear another story from LeBay and Christine’s past.

Man, celebrity impressionists were all the rage when I was growing up. People like Rich Little made a fortune pretending to be other people on TV specials and game shows and the Carson show.

When I was a kid, Robin Williams was just making a name for himself as the alien Mork from TV’s Mork and Mindy. I did a pretty mean Mork impersonation on the school playground during recess, if I do say so myself. Friends would drag me to their homes and have me do my schtick in front of their bemused (and confused) parents. Now that I think back on it, I could have passed the hat after I was done and made a little scoot for myself. Of course, it’s easy to be smart after and tell yourself that…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 20

Part 2: Chapter 42

A winter storm blankets the Pittsburgh area. In Darnell’s garage (which has been closed down by order of the Pennsylvania State Police), Christine’s engine roars to life. Her stick shift drops into drive, and she begins to motorvate.

First stop: Don Vandenberg, one of Buddy Repperton’s gang, is working the late shift at his father’s gas station. A car stops at the pumps furthest from the station’s office. Don tramps across the lot, blinded by the wind and snow. He steps up to the car’s driver side window and freezes. The corpse of Roland D. LeBay tells him to fill ‘er up. From the back seat, Buddy Repperton leans forward and offer’s Don a swig of Texas Driver. Don screams and runs for his life… which isn’t very long.

Second stop: Will Darnell sits at home watching A Christmas Carol (the Alastair Sim version, natch). A series of blasts from a car horn bring Darnell to his front window. Christine seems to be talking to him. As Christine crashes through the snow embankment at the mouth of his driveway, Darnell tries to call Arnie to tell him to call off his dog. Nobody’s home at the Cunningham’s. Darnell attempts to call the police, but his call is cut short when Christine burst through his front window. Trying to get to the attic of his house, Darnell has a heart attack. Christine pounces.

Last stop: Darnell’s Do-It-Yourself Garage. Christine returns to her burrow to rest. It’s been a long and busy night…

Winters in Pittsburgh are usually mild. Sure, we get a major snowfall once a season, but it’s par for the course. The roads get icy, schools either delay their openings or close altogether for the day, and you stay in and watch the soaps in the afternoon. No biggie.

The storm that covers Libertyville in snow feels a little different, a little more ferocious. It sort of reminds me of the Blizzard of…

…no… lemme finish… the Blizzard of 1993.

Saturday, 13 March 1993, is a day many Pittsburghers won’t soon forget. Nearly twenty-four inches of snow fell on the city in a single day. All major roads — the Pennsylvania Turnpike and interstate highways were closed. People were urged to stay safe and stay home.

Me? I drove to work.

At that time, I was living on Mt. Washington. I did not have a phone. (What a time!) I worked at a restaurant in Robinson Township, which is on the way to the Pittsburgh Airport. With no way for me to learn that the restaurant was closed, I drove (slowly) through the maelstrom to work. When I arrived, the parking lot was empty save for several tons of untouched snow. I turned around and drove to a local Eat’n Park for dinner. As soon as my meal was served, a PA State trooper came in and announced that they were about to close I-376. I wolfed down my fish sandwich and got back into my car.

By the time I got to Mt. Washington, it was impossible to make it up the steep roads back to my apartment. (I think if I were riding in Christine, we would have made it home, no problem.) So, I carried on through the Liberty Tunnels and headed to a friend’s apartment in Shadyside. I had to force my car into a snowdrift on a side street. (And hope to God there wasn’t a car already there buried beneath the snow.) I walked through thigh-high snow banks and knocked at my friend’s door. We watched the shitshow on TV and watched people cross-country ski down Fifth Avenue from her front windows. It was a helluva good time!

Say what you want about pornography (now how’s that for a segue?!), but at least Don Vandenberg is reading, amirite?

Crazily enough, this isn’t the last time we will take a look at paperback sex books in Christine (specifically) and in King’s other work (generally). Believe it or not, I have more to say on the subject in a later post.

After disposing of Don Vandenberg like a used tissue (pun intended, I am sorry to say), Christine goes cruising through the unplowed streets of Libertyville. Her pleasure cruise begins with these words from our faithful Third-Person Narrator: “Like Gaul, all of Libertyville Heights was divided into three parts (363).

Say what now?

Commentarii de Bello Gallico (or, if aren’t up on your Classical Latin, Commentaries on the Gallic War) was written by Julius Caesar as a defense of his conquest of Gaul. Threatened with prosecution for the abuse of his authority, Caesar knew he faced the stripping of his wealth and citizenship (amongst other indignities) upon his return from the West. In order to defend himself, he knew he needed the people on his side. (The dumb, stupid, easily led by the nose people.) So, he wrote his Commentaries (in 3rd person, mind you) to show that his efforts in Gaul were totally necessary and for the further glory of Rome. His “objective” account of his time in Gaul portrayed him as a military hero and great leader. Think of it as the YouTube video of the Roman Empire.

Caesar’s Commentaries have long been a favorite of Latin classes because of their straightforward, simple prose. It begins with the frequently quoted phrase “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres,” meaning “Gaul is a whole divided into three parts.”

Now, what Julius Caesar is doing in Libertyville is beyond me, but I don’t fault ol’ Stevie for having a bit of fun. Lord knows I’ve dropped all sorts of literary references and song lyrics in my own writing — everything from “Subdivisions” by Rush to James Joyce’s Ulysses. I say just roll with it. I mean, at least it isn’t another reference to the Phillies, amirite?

I like that A Christmas Carol is an invisible thread connecting Arnie and Darnell. I’d like to think that Leigh and Dennis have it on in the background, too, but King doesn’t say.

It’s fitting that the most famous Christmas Ghost Story of all-time is playing as “The Ghost of Christmas Past” comes a-calling at Darnell’s house. Sadly for Darnell, I think that singing Christmas carols at his front door is the last thing Christine wants to do. Playing “The Carol of the Bells” on his head seems more of what she has in mind.

Even though we’re only dealing with a single chapter today, I think we still need to call it a night and pull over. The snow is coming down steadily and the roads are getting pretty dicey. Before we get to the motor lodge, however, I want to bring up one last reference that King makes.

I know what you are thinking: jeez, the attack on Darnell in his home has the same quality as the shark’s attack on Quint in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). Hey, why not? Jaws was a MASSIVE blockbuster hit. If King is gonna borrow from Caesar, why wouldn’t he borrow from Spielberg, as well?

Me? I’d like to think that King had another “When Animals Attack” movie on his mind during this scene. Released two years after Jaws, Orca (1977, Michael Anderson) is pure Grade-A Italian cheese from the great Dino De Laurentiis.

After watching Jaws in 1975, de Laurentiis called his writer buddy Luciano Vincenzoni in the middle of the night and told him to “find a fish tougher and more terrible than the great white.” Not knowing a darn thing about sea life, Vincenzoni’s brother Adriano (who dabbled in zoology) told him about killer whales, and a classic was born.

One of my favorite horror sub-genres is the “Jaws Rip-Off” movie. You got your classics like Orca and Barracuda (1978) and Piranha (1978). But the rip-off doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. Don’t like the ocean? Well, guess what? Filmmakers can take the basic structure of Jaws and apply it to any animal. Do you like spiders? How’s about Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)? Do you like bears? Here’s Grizzly (1976). Hell, we don’t even need a real animal. Do you dig Sasquatch? Have a Snowbeast (1977). How about a mutant-bear-thing that looks like it’s been turned inside-out? We got you covered with Prophecy (1979). They all essentially follow the Jaws story, and quite a few of them feature people in power assuring everyone that they will not close the beaches… or the ski slopes… or the lazy river… or the county fair… or…

Well, you get the idea.

Glad we finally made it to the motel. Man, I just want to crawl up on the couch with a hot toddy and watch the Penguins hockey game. While I’m relaxing and screaming at the TV, you need to read Part 3: Chapter 43. We are leaving the third-person narration behind and going back to the cozy, first-person environs of our old friend Dennis.

He’s out of the hospital now, Blog-o-weeners, though he’s still motorvating on a pair of crutches. Leigh pays him a visit at home while his parents are out. I wonder what they are going to talk about while sitting, oh, so close to one another on the couch? You don’t think Dennis would… nah… he wouldn’t do that, would he? Dennis and Leigh are about to learn a thing or two about Christine and Arnie, but I think it’s we the readers that are gonna learn a little lesson about what not to do with your best friend’s girl. Read closely, Blog-o-weeners, and pay close attention to Dennis’s actions, because…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 19

Part 2: Chapters 40 & 41

Rudolph Junkins and his fellow Pennsylvania State Police Detective Rick Mercer are planning to drop the hammer on Will Darnell’s illegal operation. The first domino in the line is Darnell’s accountant — the one who lives in ritzy Sewickley. Next is Darnell himself.

The last to be picked up is Arnie. Driving Darnell’s car across state lines, Arnie is pulled over by the New York State Police. In a secret compartment in the trunk, the cops find a stash of illegal cigarettes. Arnie is arrested.

In custody, Arnie refuses to talk. Regina and Michael make the trip into New York with their lawyer, and — still — Arnie refuses to drop a dime on Will Darnell. He tells his parents that although he knew about the secret compartment in Darnell’s car, the authorities have to prove he knows. He doesn’t think they can do that.

Arnie is released into his parents’ care on $1,000 bail, and everyone returns to Libertyville. Arnie talks his mother into making plans for the entire family to go and visit Regina’s sister in Ligonier, PA, something of a annual Christmas Eve tradition. Arnie senses that it might be best for him to be out of town for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, Leigh is frightened for her parents who have walked through the snow to a neighbor’s house for a cocktail party. Leigh can only imagine her parents being caught in the glare of a pair of dual headlights. Frantic, she calls Dennis and asks if they can meet after the holidays to talk… not about Arnie and his problems… but about Christine…

I’ve been pulled over for speeding once or twice in my driving life. (It’s a fair, cop!) I found the experience utterly terrifying. (I can’t begin to imagine the deeper levels of terror that black drivers feel.) When Arnie hears the cop car tell him to pull over, his imagination takes over:

“His panic-stricken mind spun up a kaleidoscope of jumbled images. College application forms with with words REJECTED—CONVICTED FELON stamped across them. Prison bars, blued steel. A judge bending down from a high bench, his face white and accusing. Big bull queers in a prison yard looking for fresh meat. Christine riding the conveyor into the car crusher in the junkyard behind the garage.” (338)

That Christine features in Arnie’s imagined “worst-case scenario” speaks to the levels that his obsession and addiction have taken him. Of course, it’s the LeBay inside Arnie that talks him off the ledge. LeBay assures Arnie that everything will be all right. In fact, it’s LeBay that the New York State cops hear when they ask Arnie for the keys to the trunk:

“‘Give me the keys, kid,’ one of the cops said.

“‘Why don’t you just get them yourself, you shitter?’ Arnie said.

“‘You’re not helping yourself, kiddo,’ the cop said, but he looked startled and a little fearful all the same, for a moment the kid’s voice had deepened and roughened and he had sounded forty years older and a pretty tough customer — nothing like the skinny kid he saw before him at all.” (339)

Just what is it about those cigarettes that Arnie is toting around in Darnell’s car that is so bad? (Aside from their cancer-causing abilities, natch.)

Taxes, baby, taxes.

In 1978 (when our story takes place, don’cha know?) the United States Congress enacted the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act. It was passed to prevent criminal organizations from trafficking in cigarettes and selling them on the black market to generate profits to fund criminal activities.

 

The Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act makes it a federal crime to ship, transport, receive, possess, sell, distribute or purchase more than 10,000 cigarettes without tax stamps in the states which require tax stamps.

Although the cops that visited Bill Upshaw in his swank Sewickley home were federales, the cops that pull Arnie over in Port Jervis, NY (a real place some 100 miles north of Philadelphia), are a combination of Pennsylvania and New York’s finest. Not sure why the Feds wouldn’t have gotten involved in some interstate infractions, but I’m sure Arnie’s parents thank God for small favors.

 

It seems that Junkins is subconsciously beginning to see Arnie and Christine’s connection in the same way Darnell does:

“‘You don’t like that kid, do you?’ Rick asked.

“Junkins uttered a bewildered little laugh. ‘You know, the first time I kind of did. I liked him and I felt sorry for him. I felt like maybe he was covering for somebody else who had something on him. But this time I didn’t like him at all.’

“He considered.

“‘And I didn’t like that car, either. The way he kept touching it every time I thought I had him on the ropes. It was spooky.’” (332)

Spooky, indeed.

Junkins doesn’t know just how close he is to the truth. There is someone that Arnie is covering for, and it’s someone who has something in him, not on.

Much like Arnie’s trip to Albany, our trip today is a truncated one. I say we make good use of the extra time and enjoy all the amenities that the motel we are staying at offers. You can have the slippers, I want the terry cloth robe.

One last thing to talk about before we pull over, though — Ligonier, PA.

Where now?

Ligonier is a scant 45 mile drive from “Libertyville” (aka Penn Hills). Named after John Ligonier, a British noble of French origin who held the rank of Field Marshal in the British Army, Fort Ligonier was an important post for the British army during the French and Indian War. With the French controlling the Ohio River from their Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh), the British presence in Ligonier was necessary to drive the French out of the area. Indeed, the number of men maintained at Fort Ligonier — around 6,000 — made Ligonier the second-most populated city in Pennsylvania. Only Philadelphia at the time had more people.

Ligonier’s population since then has never been as high as that. Nowadays, 1,500 people call the small town that is often referred to as a real-life “Stars Hollow” from the TV show Gilmore Girls home. And if it’s Stars Hollow, then that can only mean one thing — Sebastian Bach must be wandering around!

I’ve got some big news, Blog-o-weeners! From here to the end of Blog-o-ween 2026, you will only need to read one chapter a night. That’s right! One chapter! I front-loaded this year’s Blog-o-ween knowing that folks are busy heading into the home stretch. There are costumes to make, parties to plan, houses to decorate… the whole megillah. So for tomorrow, all yinz gotta read is Chapter 42. The Ghost of Christmas Past is gonna pay Will Darnell a visit, and she’s a tad scarier than Angela Pleasance, lemme tell ya!

I myself am pretty busy with extracurricular activities for the rest of the month. I’ve got a full slate of movies to see — In the Mouth of Madness, Mr. Vampire 2, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, and more. But the (blood) red-letter day on my calendar is the Horrorthon at the Aero Theatre.

This year is the 21st Annual Horrothon. I only attended my first one three years ago. The set-up every year is essentially the same: starting at 7 p.m. on Saturday night and leaving off some twelve hours and six movies later, the Horrorthon is an endurance event of cosmic and comic proportions.

Thinking of attending yourself? Ask around if people you know have survived the night. You’ll know who they are. They have a far-away look in their eyes, they say things like “MULTITASKING!” for seemingly no reason, they may have candy stuck in their hair or ground into the treads of their sneakers. Do some research first. It’s best to be prepared, and…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 18

Free Day:

The Other Christines

on the Assembly Line

Even by the early 1980s, one would have been forgiven for thinking of Stephen King as a fiction factory. Christine was King’s thirteenth published novel to come off the assembly line. Since the release of Carrie in 1974, King had published seven other books under his own name and four under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. 

By 1983, King was a household name, and his brand of horror had changed the literary landscape. The movies hadn’t quite caught up with Stephen’s output, however. By the time of Christine’s (the book) release, Hollywood had adapted only four of his works: Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma), ‘Salem’s Lot (1979, Tobe Hooper), The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick), and Creepshow (1982, George A. Romero).

(Only Carrie and The Shining could be considered true “Hollywood” pictures. Tobe Hooper’s ‘Salem’s Lot was a two-part miniseries for CBS television — which was still seen as “lesser-than” when compared to movies — and Creepshow was an original screenplay written by King for Romero and producer Richard P. Rubinstein’s independent production company Laurel Entertainment. Pittsburgh ain’t Los Angeles, Blog-o-weeners.)

After Christine’s publication, that number would more than double over the next five years. During the 1980s, King was ubiquitous — bookstore shelves groaned beneath the weight of his bibliography, cinema screens ran red with movies that ran in the black. Heck, even innocent TV viewers weren’t safe:

John Carpenter’s career, too, began in 1974 with the release of his science fiction comedy Dark Star. In 1978, he re-wrote the rules of both horror and independent filmmaking with Halloween. His career seemed on an ever-upward trajectory with popular and critically acclaimed hits such as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Fog (1980), and Escape from New York (1981). That is until the release of his remake of Christian Nyby’s The Thing from Another World (1951). The Thing (1982) was (at the time) a misstep. Deemed to be too downbeat for the audiences that made Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial such a hit, Carpenter’s gory film has since been reevaluated and is now considered to be a classic of the science fiction/horror genre.

Come 1983, Carpenter’s career was a bit wobbly. Two other projects that he had in the pipeline — adaptations of another of King’s novels, Firestarter, and Eric Van Lustbader’s The Ninja — were delayed. (Neither would be released under Carpenter’s guidance.) Carpenter needed the work; Richard Kobritz (Christine’s producer) needed a director. The two men had previously worked together in 1978 on the made-for-TV movie Someone’s Watching Me.

Along with screenwriter Bill Phillips, Carpenter began the job of adapting a novel that hadn’t even been published yet. The film’s budget was just under $10 million, which was less than what he had to work with on The Thing, but more than he spent on all of his previous movies combined. (The average film budget of an independent movie in the early 80s was around $2-3 million. Even big movies in 1983 — Return of the Jedi, for instance — had small-ish budgets of around $30 million. Peanuts when compared to the dollar-gobbling behemoths of today.) Still, the budget was small enough to allow Carpenter what he values most as a director: freedom.

I think Carpenter’s Christine is a model of efficiency when it comes to adaptation. Anytime you are charged with turning a 526-page book into a 110-page script (following the industry standard of one page equally one minute of screen time), you are going to have to make some hard choices. From the get-go, Carpenter and Phillips show that they are unafraid to make those hard choices. Within the first minute, they clear up the confusion of where the evil resides in the story. Throughout Blog-o-ween, I’ve been trying to figure it out — is it LeBay or Christine? Carpenter and Phillips cut through the knotty issue by showing us that it is Christine herself. To the pulsing boogie backbeat of George Thorogood and the Destoyers’ “Bad to the Bone,” we are shown that even before leaving the assembly line (which was merely an abandoned furniture factory in Irwindale, CA) Christine just ain’t no damn good.

Other scenes, as well as characters, from the book are combined and compressed to fit the film. Arnie’s confrontation with Buddy Repperton happens on the first day of school before he’s even found Christine. (Good work, Buddy, for getting expelled on the first day — that’s gotta be a record.) Roland D. LeBay and his brother George are smooshed together into the actor Roberts Blossom. Leigh’s near death experience happens at the drive-in not on the side of the road. There a more examples I could choose, but it all boils down to Carpenter’s ability to… well… boil down the story to its essentials. I think young filmmakers who are looking to adapt other media into a movie could do worse than study Carpenter’s work on Christine.

Christine did well enough at the box office. It pulled in around $21 million over seven weeks. Good, but not great numbers. Audiences liked it fine. Critics were relatively kind. Carpenter has been quoted as saying,

“I like it. I like it a lot. For reasons like the cast. I really dig them. And the car. It was fun. It’s not one of my favorites of mine, but that’s OK. It’s a good movie.”

Stephen King himself, sadly, said that Carpenter’s Christine and Kubrick’s The Shining were the only film versions of his work that had actually bored him.

Ouch!

There has been talk in recent years of there being a remake in the works, but isn’t there always talk of that? The last time Christine’s name rose from the graveyard of dead projects was 2023. Blumhouse Productions announced that they are developing the film with Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, etc.) as director. Nothing has happened yet. With the new Carrie remake doing well, maybe we will see Christine on the road sooner rather than later.

While Blumhouse gets its act together, we can enjoy other versions of King’s story. Sadly, there is no BBC Radio adaptation of Christine like there is for ‘Salem’s Lot. (I’m not sure how well an audio dramatization of Christine would work.) There is, however, a pretty good audiobook version from Simon & Schuster. (Look for it at your local library!) Holter Graham takes the wheel for the narration, and he does a pretty good job of it. He even attempts a Pittsburgh accent, most notably in the early scene where Arnie and Dennis change one of Christine’s tires in front of a house of yinzers. Not bad… but still not perfect.

I think if another audiobook is produced, then they should give the keys to Curt Wootton, better known on the internet as “Pittsburgh Dad.” He’d nail those accents!

There’s one last “adaptation” I want to talk about before we pull over and call it a night. The Stephen King Book Club has been creating videos on YouTube since 2022. They run the gamut from Top Ten lists to movie reviews to deep dives into characters and settings of King’s novels and short stories. Last year, they released a pair of videos about Christine. The first, entitled “Christine: Solving the Mystery of the ‘Evil Car,’” discusses one of the conundrums that I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of — namely, who is really in the driver’s seat: LeBay or Christine?

It is the channel’s second video that I want to bring to your attention. “A True-Crime Retelling of CHRISTINE: Stephen King's Cursed Car” is a pretty ingenious adaptation of the novel. Formatted as your typical true crime podcast, this video tells the story from outside the narrative of King’s book. I’d like to see more of this kind of approach with some of King’s other stories. One of my favorite audio drama podcasts of all time is The Black Tapes. This podcast had the feel of an NPR show, and it produced a lot of shivers up and down my spine. Man, a true-crime investigation into the events of The Shining, ‘Salem’s Lot, Carrie, or It could be a lot of fun.

You know what else is a lot of fun? Unwinding at the motel after a long day’s driving. I’ll order us food from room service, while you get to work on tomorrow’s reading: Part 2: Chapters 40 & 41. It’s Christmas Eve, and good ol’ Arnie’s luck finally runs out, Blog-o-weeners. That’s what you get, I suppose, for driving hundreds of miles all over the darn place.

That true crime rendition of Christine has me thinking of other pseudo-documentaries. My favorite ever is one that Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel aired back in 2012. Mermaids: The Body Found (and its sequel that aired the following year Mermaids: The New Evidence) follows the story of a scientific team's investigation into the source behind mysterious underwater recordings of an unidentified marine body.

It was all so silly, and I gotta admit that I loved it. (I thought it would make a great remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.) Those who bemoan the lack of skepticism in the culture and the deterioration of scientific eduction didn’t love it so much, however. Many who watched the shows were unable to separate fact from fiction and believed what they were watching was a factual documentary. I often wonder if politicians and the like pay close attention to these historical moments when the population is willing to believe anything so long as it is portrayed in a realistic manner. I mean, for those who are interested in pulling the wool over the electorate’s eyes, it’s a teachable moment and…

Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 17

Part 2: Chapters 38 & 39

Arnie reads about the deaths of Buddy Repperton, Richie Trelawney, and Bobby Stanton in the newspaper and becomes depressed and frightened. Somehow he feels responsible, but why should that be the case? He had been all the way on the other side of the state. He gets inside Christine and immediately feels better. Why should he worry about those shitters?

While he is cruising in Christine, Arie gets a hankering for some pizza from Gino’s. After he parks across the street, he realizes that he has forgotten his keys in the car. He goes back to get them and is assaulted by the rotten meat smell that Leigh had complained about. Arnie turns tail and runs into Gino’s.

In the phone booth in Gino’s, Arnie attempts to reach out to several people — his parents, Leigh, Dennis. None of them have the time or the patience for Arnie. Alienated from everyone and everything, Arnie runs back to the one “person” who really understands… Christine. Once inside, Arnie sees LeBay in the passenger seat, and the two men begin to motorvate.

At Darnell’s Garage, Arnie is visited again by Rudolph Junkins. The state police detective has more questions for Arnie in the wake of Repperton’s “accident.” He has evidence that suggests a second car was involved — there were tire tracks in the snow and red paint on one of the barriers. (Not to mention the red paint that was embedded — embedded! — in the flesh of Moochie Welch.) Unable to make the logical (or illogical) leap that Darnell has made about Christine, Junkins leaves Arnie to his car. But before he goes, he tells Arnie that he seems different this time around, harder, older… over twenty years older, in fact…

“How did you hurt your back, Arnie?”

Well, now we know, eh, Blog-o-weeners?

We will talk more about the movie adaptation of Christine tomorrow (it’s our next to last “Free Day,” don’cha know!), but I think we can discuss it here a bit without ruining what’s to come. One of the things that I really love about Christine the book and feel that I am missing in Christine the movie is the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that Arnie himself pours into her. Christine’s (and LeBay’s) relationship with Arnie is a parasitic one. They need him to live. They must feed off of him in order to maintain whatever semblance of life (if you call that living) that they have.

After imagining himself being married to Christine (a frightful vision if ever there was one), Arnie remembers how it was that he hurt his back:

“[H]e had put Christine’s transmission in neutral and pushed her, pushed her until she began to roll on her flat tires, pushed her until she was out the door and he could hear the wind of November keening sharply around the wrecks and abandoned hulls with their stellated glass and their ruptured gas tanks; he had pushed her until the sweat ran off him in rivers and his heart thudded like a runaway horse in his chest and his back cried out for mercy; he had pushed her, his body pumping as if in some hellish consummation; he had pushed her, and inside the odometer ran slowly backward, and some fifty feet beyond the door his back began to really throb, and he kept pushing, muscling it along on the flat, slashed tires, his hands going numb, his back screaming, screaming, screaming. And then…

“It had been a miracle.

“He remembered how it had suddenly become easier to push the car because the tires were healing themselves magically, kneading themselves together without a scar and then inflating. The broken glass had begun to reassemble from nowhere, knitting itself upward with small, scratchy, crystalline sounds. The dents began to pop back out.

“He simply pushed her until she as right enough to run, and then he had driven her, cruising between the rows until the odometer ran back past what Repperton and his friends had done. And then Christine was okay.” (320-1)

In King’s description, Arnie is nothing more than a dray horse for Christine. With the sweat pouring off of him and his heart pounding away, Arnie seems more like Boxer the workhorse from George Orwell’s Animal Farm than a man. One wonders what Christine will do with Arnie when, like Boxer, he comes to the end of his productive use.

I also like the hidden reference that King seems to make to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” In that song, it is mentioned that

“With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more

Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty

That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

When the gales of November came early

“…

“The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound

And a wave broke over the railin’

And every man knew, as the captain did too

'Twas the witch of November come stealin’”

A November Gale is a series of strong winds that blow over the Great Lakes in the fall. Often referred to as “The Witch of November,” these winds can gain hurricane-like strength. They have been known to cause rivers to “run backward” as the lake water is blown back into the mouths of rivers.

King writes that as he pushed Christine around the junkyard behind Darnell’s Garage, Arnie “could hear the wind of November keening sharply around the wrecks and abandoned hulls” (320). A “keen” is an Irish funeral song accompanied by wailing in lamentation for the dead. “Keen” as a verb describes the action of wailing in grief for a dead person. The Witch of November keens for the dying Christine. Perhaps the force of the gales, along with Arnie’s body and LeBay’s will, causes the river of time to “run backward,” pulling her from the brink?

(The lines from Lightfoot’s song

“When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'

‘Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya’

At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said

‘Fellas, it's been good to know ya’”

are still some of the most haunting lyrics I’ve ever heard. Brr!)

Addiction rears its ugly head again in Chapter 38. Arnie seems to be feeling the post-party, hangover blues that every alcoholic feels come morning. The news of the deaths of Buddy, Richie, and Bobby hits Arnie hard. He feels responsible in some vague way that he can’t quite recall. He runs to Christine like a drinker taking a nip of the hair of the dog that bit them. Once inside, all those bad feelings seem just to float away and disappear.

As he cruises around Libertyville, Arnie’s eyes move “restlessly from side to side, looking mistrustfully out at a world full of crazy drivers and stupid pedestrians and general idiocy” (312). King describes these thoughts as running in a “softly paranoid and bitterly comforting fashion” (312). This brings us back to the idea of Christine as a force of returning conservatism in the culture. Inside Christine, Arnie can safely look out at the world and bemoan the idiots that surround him on all sides. Arnie, like any good Fox News viewer or talk radio listener, lives in the paranoid, but comforting world of conspiracy theory. “They” are stupid and crazy, but not “me.”

To further cement the idea that what Arnie is experiencing is closer to raw emotion than rational thought, Christine (via WDIL) fills herself with

“a steady flood of golden oldies, and today all of the them seemed to be instrumentals — ‘Rebel Rouser,’ ‘Wild Weekend,’ ‘Telstar,’ Sandy Nelson’s jungle-driven ‘Teen Beat,’ and ‘Rumble’ by Linc Wray, the greatest of the them all.” (312)

In other words, no words are necessary. In fact, as Depeche Mode would say, “Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm.” Words just might help break the spell Arnie is under. Better — for Christine and LeBay — to just remove them and let Arnie stew in the soup of pure anger.

Okay… enough of all that… let’s have a little fun, hmmm?

The old lady who called the ranger station because she had seen flames in the park a little after ten. How did she know that? Easy —

“She reckoned it to be around quarter past ten, because she had been watching the Tuesday Night Movie on CBS and it hadn’t been but half over.” (309)

The CBS Tuesday Night Movies (which began life as The CBS Friday Night Movies) was a weekly showcase for that beloved format: the made-for-TV movie. At first, these were movies with no formal connection between them, but as time went on CBS copied a format that both ABC and NBC were following. CBS created two series-like projects that they alternated with non-connected television movies. These projects were Shaft (TV versions of the blaxploitation film franchise starring Richard Roundtree) and Hawkins, which starred Jimmy Stewart as a rural lawyer investigating cases.

What movie was the old woman enjoying the night Christine smooshed Buddy Repperton? On the night of 12 December 1978, the CBS Tuesday Night Movie was The Jordan Chance.

Raymond Burr stars as Frank Jordan, a man who was wrongfully imprisoned. He becomes a lawyer upon his release, and through his Jordan Foundation, he gives other wrongfully imprisoned people a chance to absolve themselves. I could see this as being part of a string of connected made-for-TV movies. Unfortunately, this is the only film about Jordan’s exploits that CBS produced.

A more Christine-appropriate TV-movie wouldn’t be broadcast on the CBS Tuesday Night Movie until the following September:

Oooo Nelly… I think we oughta pull off into that motel up there. My back is killing me for some reason. I know, I know… I should have taken your advice about buying one of those beaded seat covers at the last gif shop. Before I crash out with a hot bath and a cold beer, let’s talk about one last thing.

When Arnie dives for cover in Christine, he sees himself in the passenger seat as a twisted old man à la Roland LeBay. As the young Arnie loses his mind, the old Arnie says over and over again “See anything green?” (322).

See anything what now?

I’ve never heard this phrase before. The only real explanation of it I could find was from the appropriately titled website Green’s Dictionary of Slang. According to Green’s, the complete version of the phrase is “see anything green about me.” There is also another version that is “see anything green in my eye.” Whatever the version you use, according to Green’s, when you ask this of someone, you are asking them if they think you are a fool, or if they think you are stupid.

I’m not sure what this phrase has to do within the context of the scene. Does the young Arnie take the old Arnie for a fool? Beats me. Just roll with it, says I.

Okay, we’re done for real now. Luckily, I brought along some Epsom salt and a couple of lavender bath bombs. While I try to untangle my back, you can head on down to the lounge or take a dip in the pool or do whatever — you don’t have any reading for tomorrow, after all. Instead, we’ll talk about the adaptations of Christine that are available to us. There’s John Carpenter’s movie, a terrific audiobook, and a pretty creative reimagining of Christine’s crimes as a faux-true crime podcast.

Saaay! Lookie what I found in the TV Guide. They’re showing Deadly Messages starring the one and only Kathleen Beller. Looks like I’ve got my post-bath night planned! You know, the made-for-TV movie gets a lot of hate from your average hoity-toity cinephile, but I think, in a lot of ways, they are more entertaining than their big screen brethren. They had to find ways around the rules of TV decency as set forth by the networks’ Standards and Practices divisions. People look down on TV as being an intellectual wasteland, but really sometimes…