Christine

"Christine" (1983, John Carpenter, Columbia Pictures, Delphi Premier Productions, Polar Film) is the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel, "Christine".

I'm on a bit of a John Carpenter kick.

Christine is a sentient 1978 Plymouth Fury car. She's furious and out for blood. Anyone's blood. She is purchased by Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon), an unpopular nerdy teen who plans to bring her back to her former glory. Christine is grateful to him. She just likes to show her gratitude in strange ways.... like attempting to murder Arnie's best friend, or his class bullies... Or, well, anyone really. Arnie becomes obsessed with his new metal lady-love and cannot look away.

Although I enjoyed the book and I am a fan of Carpenter's films, I'll admit to being a little bored with this film after a while. The car is pretty and the music is superb, but in the main there's only so much fear that can be derived from an angry killer car with a sarcastic stereo. The action, naturally, becomes very same-y and the film suffers for that in my opinion.

[Image: Columbia Pictures]

Hani

Death Proof

"Death Proof" (2007, Quentin Tarantino, Troublemaker Studios, The Weinstein Co., Dimension Films) is a Grindhouse film about a killer in a stunt car whose favourite victims are young, drunk bimbos.

Kurt Russell plays 'Stuntman' Mike, an ageing Hollywood stuntman who stalks young, attractive women and drives about in an old stunt Chevy Nova (and later a Dodge Charger) which he maintains are 'death proof'.  He then proceeds to demonstrate this by using it as a weapon, for you see, it is only 'death proof' for him!

But his reign of terror can truly not last forever, and maybe, just maybe, one day he'll meet his match!

A fun modern Tarantino exploitation film which aims for the Grindhouse vibe, complete with the Grindhouse-y camera-work we have come to know and love. The first half of this film is pretty great with lots of bar scenes and build-up followed by some truly disturbing scenes with our charismatic antagonist. It does slow down in the middle, but generally the car chase scenes make up for those bits and the film picks up the pace for last few acts.

I adore Kurt Russell, and he's very good at bringing this asshole character to life. Stuntman Mike is a complete douchebag! The character completely epitomises the sleazy and the entitled. It's hard for me to not love a character portrayed by Kurt Russell, but Stuntman Mike is really hard to like. And that's a great thing!

Most of the other characters, outside of a few of "The Girls" are mighty disposable, but it's a movie about a maniac in a car, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of character development. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find such a good build up of our main victims. And, in true Tarantino style, we also get to enjoy their brutal, brutal deaths.

Kurt Russell delivers a fantastically creepy stalker character who has a very nasty side, and we have some cameos in the forms of Eli Roth, Rose McGowan, and Mr. Director himself. Stuntman Mike is also pitted against some truly strong characters including stuntwoman, Zoë Bell, and the kickass Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson.

"Death Proof" starts off promisingly with some good dialogue, some creepiness, some lap-dancing and then some horrorshow brutality. Although the film wonders a little in the middle, this is completely typical of the Grindhouse genre and makes it all the more fun when it picks up the pace again. While it's far from Tarantino's best film, it's still a entertaining thrill ride and, as ever, a vehicle for his foot fetishes...

[Image: Dimension Films]
 

Hani

Hybrid

"Hybrid" aka "Super Hybrid" (2011, Eric Valette, Anchor Bay) is a movie about a man-eating car. It's been a while since I watched the ultimate killer car movie, "Christine", and since I didn't have it handy, I thought it was high time to widen my killer car film horizons!

The premise of the film is simple: a squid-like creature with the ability to camouflage itself as anything in order to hunt its prey, has a particular penchant for cars. We see him out in the 'wild' (aka Chicago), eating some moronic club goers. But, when he gets into an accident, and is taken to a small garage run by a skeleton staff of randoms, the car decides to have a game of hide and eat... (sorry for terrible punnage... I'm bad for that!)

Our rag tag team of mechanics (with, what seems to have become recently obligatory in horror movies, the tough-but-not-butch female mechanic character), the dickhead boss and the secretery in the tiny skirt, work out pretty quickly what is going on (after a few of them get eaten first, of course) and quickly decide to capture the beast to see if it's worth some money.

So, trapped in the large building, the crew attempt to bring down the monster, while the monster (disguised as various vehicles) attempts to devour the whole staff. (He's a very hungry squid monster).

They seemed to very suddenly jump to the correct conclusion on what the creature is and seem to be completely unfazed by this, which always annoys me.

This film was very well put together and the background music is very.... Batman-y.... The production is very professional and the editing is excellent.

I liked the noises the monster car made, too. Something between an engine and a stomach growl. The animal morphs into a car, he's not wearing it like a suit, so the almost organic noise was very fitting.

The SFX of the monster were pretty good, considering budget, but they began to show too much, kind of spoiling what was otherwise a nifty little effect. I enjoyed the car's red vision as well.

I was confused as to how it ate the people, though. At first I thought it filled up with a kind of stomach acid goop and dissolved them like a venus flytrap (which I thought was suitably horrifying), but later it looked more like it had the tentacles and its mouth within the car cockpit... I liked the acidic idea more.

The car manages to have it's own presence as a creature, though, in the same way that "Christine" always does. So, I must commend them for that! It sneaks about convincingly and, similar to 'Robert the tyre' in "Rubber", it seems to waver between normal and menacing.

I wasn't too enthralled with the characters. The lead female was a bit of a moan, and the war hero mechanic angle wasn't played on enough with the most likable male character. It just seemed kind of thrown in there. There was also a lot of useless sub-plot build up for no reason: lazy boyfriend, cousin/nephew, war hero.... Wasted man-eating car screen time if you ask me!

The dickhead boss had so much promise, but he just didn't seem to be well rounded enough as a character. It seemed to me, to be written like a Bruce Campbell character, but they just didn't give the actor enough of the quips to take him from an asshole to a good-guy-with-asshole-tendencies.

While I've seen a lot better, I was pleasantly surprised by the professionalism in this film, and found the story suitably batshit crazy and also very well put together! It's worth watching if you're in the mood to watch a bunch of mechanics try to trap a monster car in a garage. If you're looking for guts, gore or jumps, it's probably not for you.

[Picture: Anchor Bay]

 

Hani