Given that Christine is about obsessive love, it's ironic that John Carpenter has never been that into his 1983 film. When Total Film mentions that it has only grown in reputation over the last 40 years, to a point that many now regard it as a classic or even a genre masterpiece, he scoffs down the phone: ‘Oh come on, stop, that's ridiculous. I know there's some rumblings about its anniversary. My question is, “Why?”'
Carpenter's fond of his adaptation of Stephen King's book about a deadly car named Christine, and he sure had a blast making it. But he's always regarded it as a gig for hire rather than a personal project like the movies he made before () and after (). That he chose to sit behind the wheel of at all was not because he fell head over heels in love with her, but because he fell flat on his face: , now considered one of the great horror movies, opened to scathing reviews and worse box office, causing Universal to fire Carpenter from his next movie, . Back then, hopping from
