Monster Kid Theater is an ongoing column in which my three sons and I (just call me Fred MacMurray) get together to watch classic and contemporary monster movies. My trio of tots are young. Jack is 10. Elliot is 8. Ben is 6. I have not really pushed a cinematic agenda on them. They have just liked hanging out with me, I guess. And as I watch plenty of movies and make movies and move in those circles, it just goes to follow that they will follow.
Many of the movies I watch are naturally a bit odd by “normal” (whatever that means) parent standards, but I have ensured that when we do sit down to watch movies and when we go to the cinema, that I try to spin everything into education. I break down shots, discuss film history, talk about special effects, acting, metaphor and allegory and the use of music. Some of it they get, some they will eventually get. Some they just ignore, in fact.
But they are my joy. We are a team.
Over the past few years on this column’s previous home at ComingSoon.net, I have written about the lads watching everything from the original The Fly and its black and white sequel, a triple bill of Aliens, The Thing and War of the Worlds, Kong Skull Island and Alex Kurtzman’s recent The Mummy. Recently we watched a slightly censored version of Fright Night and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. But this week, I want to discuss a recent screening of John Carpenter’s 1983 Stephen King adaptation Christine, a seemingly overly intense choice for a trio of tots, but – with a few choice on-the-fly edits – a film whose aesthetics, music and simplified narrative and character arcs proved magnetic and likely will serve as a definitive entertainment that they will take with them.
Now, I have been preaching the glories of John Carpenter to them since they were old enough to care. Not screening the films (though Jack has seen Escape from New York) but playing Carpenter’s elemental yet revolutionary synth soundtrack music. They can recognize every key theme and I have been forced to relate basic plot details to them about all the movies. But more than that, I have spoken about Carpenter’s influences and artistry, how all his music is built on simple time signatures and progressions and is employed chiefly to create a brooding blanket of mood. And when it came to driving – where most of these lessons take place, in the car – Christine was an obvious favorite. Ben especially thrilled to the idea of a sentient, haunted car marauding around as a kind of bully-hunting avenging angel. He has long loved the poster image of the bright red Plymouth Fury bathed in that signature ’80s blue backlight and 2 years ago, even re-named his Lightning McQueen toy Christine, taking a marker to other dinky cars to make them as red as the mythical monster car that existed in a film he was not allowed to watch. And Jack? Well, Hell. He’s a musician, violin is his thing, but he learned how to play that pulsing theme note-for-note on my synth.
Which brings us to now.
The three lads invited Jack’s friend Seth over for a sleepover and they demanded a film for the evening’s “movie club”. They wanted something cool and creepy and it was decided that they were ready for Christine. I agreed. In fact, I had just returned from the Frightmare in the Falls convention in Niagara Falls, where I hosted the Q&A with actor Malcolm Danare (who played chubby lackey Moochie) and we both agreed that really, Christine is not a particularly violent movie. It’s not mean or gratuitous and the only blood comes on-screen from poor glass-sliced Arnie (Keith Gordon) at the film’s metal-crunching climax. Sure, there are a few victims that get taken down by Christine, but hey, they’re bullies. Bad guys. Like, really, really bad. So they get their just desserts. EC comics style. And since the kids adore EC comics, I figured we were A-OK.
So huddled together with popcorn and lava lamps pulsing around us, we settled in to groove on a movie that couldn’t possibly live up to the hype their old man had ladled liberally on them for most of their young lives.
Now, again, these kids not only know every note of the score, they know the songs that Carpenter infused into the very DNA of the movie, from George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” to Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” to The Viscount’s snarling version of the sax-fueled “Harlem Nocturne”. So really, to them, Christine played like one long, slick and stylish rock video, a highlight reel of badass music propelled by sound and anchored by an almost fairy-tale-like, easily accessable morality.
Now, the BIG problem with Christine is that endless wave of profanity that spews from the mouths of its characters, in particular the vile Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) whose use of foul language is the punctuation to his aggressive, cruel and psychotic behavior. Thankfully, I know every beat of the movie and every line of dialogue. So I sat there, ever-alert, muting and muting and muting every off-color syllable. It was exhausting. But really, the problem with doing that (outside of arthritic digits) is that the kids already know these words anyway. And when you remove them, they imagine even WORSE words and it becomes larger than what it is. It’s censorship 101: deny an audience something, make it “dangerous” and they think it’s worse than it is and they only want it more. But as I knew no other way around it, I continued to cut them bad swears out until it felt like we were watching a clumsily cut ’80s TV broadcast.
Regardless, the kids loved the movie. They found it exciting and interesting. But they weren’t emotionally affected by it. Elliot mentioned that he really didn’t care about anyone in the movie…except for the car. He’s kind of right. Though Christine boasts a first-rate cast, it’s a one-dimensional, comic book version of King through and through. That devilish Fury is both the hero and the horror of the story and when “she” is crushed, it’s actually sad, with Christine valiantly trying to reshape her truck-smooshed body to no avail. It’s a monster truck rally as high opera. Beautiful.
Christine is not a scary movie either, and when film was over, it was over. The kids had no talking points. They weren’t spooked or shaken. Our special guest sleepover kid concurred that “it’s not a horror movie at all…but it sure is awesome!”.
The next morning they all got up and asked to hear the soundtrack while they milled around and ate breakfast and played pinball (I collect vintage tables so the lads live in a mini-retro arcade). Jack asked when we could watch more Stephen King movies so before we dropped the other kid home, I popped up Stand by Me. And holy Hell, did my thumb get a workout pummeling the mute button on that one…sheesh.
Monster Kid Theater will return…
