Christine

BUY

General		Extras
Category	Horror	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1983	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	105:34 minutes	Other Extras	Biographies-Cast & Crew
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	John Carpenter
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Keith Gordon John Stockwell Alexandra Paul Robert Prosky Harry Dean Stanton
Case	Transparent
RRP	$34.95	Music	John Carpenter Alan Howarth

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0, 256 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 256 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, slightly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    John Carpenter debuts in Region 4 DVD with this classic Stephen King adaptation. Christine (a 1958 Plymouth Fury) was made in Detroit in 1957. Detroit built Christine's body, but pure evil lurks inside of this car.

    Arnie (Keith Gordon) is a typical nerd. He sees Christine, and decides to buy and to restore her. Arnie changes from a mild-mannered nerd to a vicious selfish monster, and his friends Dennis (John Stockwell) and Leigh (Alexandra Paul) try to save him from the evil that he cannot see.

    At first glance, this plot seems ludicrous. Yet, it works well as a horror, mainly because of the convincing transformation that Arnie goes through.

Video

    This movie was made in 1983, and so is not up to contemporary standards of transfer. However, for a 16 year old film, it certainly looks tremendously good. The picture early on in the movie is deliberately aged to reflect the 1957 time period. When it returns to 1983, the picture returns to a more typical modern appearance. The picture is generally sharp and clear. Shadow detail, however, is a little lacking, as is to be expected in a transfer of this age. There was no low level noise.

    The colours were muted in the early historical sequence, but then returned to full saturation when the time period shifts forward.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. No film-to-video artefacts were seen. This in particular was a high point of this transfer. A shiny 1957 Plymouth Fury in all its chrome glory is a dead sitter for severe aliasing. Aliasing was extremely well controlled in this transfer with the worst aliasing effect being manifested as a subtle moiré effect on Christine's grille at one point. Top marks to the transfer team in this area. Early on in the film, particularly during the opening titles, there was some minor telecine wobble, which is most likely inherent in the original print. Occasionally later on in the movie, there was also some minor image wobble. Film artefacts went unnoticed.

Audio

    Dialogue was clear and easy to follow at all times.

    Audio sync was not a significant issue in this film. A few times I felt that the sync was on the verge of going out, but it was never definitely out. This most likely reflects the current hypersensitivity that I have for this particular artefact.

    The score by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth was a combination of old-time classic rock and roll and some somewhat dated synthesized atmospheric music.

    The surround channel was used lightly for music and ambience, but this was predominantly a front soundstage mix.

    The .1 channel received a small amount of signal at times during the more frenetic sequences.

Menu - 4:3

Biographies - Cast & Crew

    The video quality is excellent given the age of the movie.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
22nd October 1999