Summary

• The movie adaptation of Christine successfully balances camp and genuine horror in a story that could have been silly.
• Arnie's obsession with his car Christine drives him away from his loved ones and ultimately leads to a grisly end.
• Christine's ending highlights the danger of prioritizing material possessions over friendships and human relationships, resulting in horror and death.

The 1983 Stephen King adaptation Christine saw director John Carpenter somehow make the premise of a killer car scary, and the horror movie’s ending proves that this story still holds up. The 1983 chiller Christine had a potentially silly premise in its story of a bullied teenager who wreaks violent vengeance on his tormentors via a cursed car. However, director John Carpenter’s adaptation of Christine managed to make this story scary, sad, and emotionally impactful as Arnie grew obsessed with his car Christine while Christine tore a bloody swathe through anyone who came between them. Arnie’s obsession gradually drove him away from his friends and family and toward a grisly end.

Although Hollywood rarely gets Stephen King adaptations right, sometimes, the movie industry can successfully capture the balance between camp and genuine horror found in the author’s work. Stephen King is a legendary horror author, but the writer’s prolific output has sometimes led critics and even fans to accuse him of phoning in some of his lesser villains. Since some of King’s stories involve cursed fingers, haunted toy monkeys, and killer oil spills, this isn’t an unfair allegation. However, the author does have a knack for somehow making even seemingly silly horror premises work thanks to his engaging characters, and the ending of Christine proves it.

How Arnie Dies In Christine’s Ending

In Christine’s movie ending, Arnie goes down with his beloved car. He is thrown through the windshield as Christine tries to run over his love interest Leigh. In a moment referenced by Halloween Ends years later, Arnie tries to stop his ex-girlfriend Leigh and former friend Dennis from destroying Christine by any means necessary. In the process, Christine crashes into Leigh and tosses Arnie through its windshield, killing him when he is impaled on shards of glass. This death proved so memorable that 2013’s Carrie remake used the same image to kill off its main villain, the odious bully Chris.

Related: Every Stephen King Movie & TV Remake, Ranked

In King’s novel version of Christine, Arnie dies while trying to resist possession by Christine’s former owner, a serial killer. His last acts see him return to his old self as he tries to help Leigh and Dennis destroy the car, but this was jettisoned in Carpenter’s movie adaptation. Like Jack Torrance in Kubrick’s version of The Shining, Carpenter’s version of the King antihero doesn’t get any last-minute moment of redemption. Instead, Arnie sides with Christine until the bitter end, even using his last ounce of strength to reach out and touch the car’s bonnet as he dies. This proves that Arnie wasn’t as innocent as he seemed.

The Car Is Still Alive in Christine’s Ending

Christine doesn’t care about Arnie as much as he values his car. The car continues trying to kill Leigh and Dennis after his death, only stopping when the pair manage to corner the vehicle and drive over it with a bulldozer. As if that weren't enough, Leigh and Dennis then double down by bringing Christine’s remains to the junkyard the next day and crushing them into a cube. Despite all of this effort, the duo is still unsettled to hear the ‘50s rock and roll tunes that signaled Christine’s approach start playing in the junkyard.

Although the ‘50s rock music is just coming from a nearby boombox, the car’s grille does twitch when Leigh and Dennis look away. Thus, viewers can be sure that whatever spirit possessed Christine isn’t quite finished yet. Producer Bryan Fuller’s upcoming Christine remake offers further proof that one can’t keep a killer car down as Carpenter’s murderous automobile is set to ride again. It is not yet clear whether this movie will be a direct remake or a continuation of the original, but Christine’s ending leaves the option of a sequel on the table since the eponymous villain survives its brush with destruction.

Why Arnie Chose Christine Over Leigh and Dennis

Arnie resented Dennis for his high school football success while he felt that Leigh only expressed interest in him after Christine changed his personality. He was seduced by the possessed car’s allure and, as a result, forgot who his human friends were. As a result, it wasn't too surprising when Arnie chose Christine over Leigh and Dennis in Christine’s ending. However, the fact that Stephen King’s killer car didn’t care when Arnie died implies that Christine itself never cared about its human owner. While Arnie saw himself and the car as a lethally effective murderous duo, Christine viewed him as a means to amend.

How Christine’s Ending Changes The Novel’s Climax

In the original book, Christine is destroyed during a fight with another seemingly sentient supernatural vehicle, Petunia the tanker truck. In the movie, the car is crushed with a normal crawler loader. Furthermore, Arnie’s parents are much worse in the novel, acting almost as abusively as his bullies. It is easy to see why this was excised from Christine’s movie adaptation since the story could have been too downbeat and grim if Arnie’s home life and school life were both a living Hell. While Christine is one of Carpenter’s best horror movies, this is largely because the adaptation tones down the source novel’s excesses.

Arnie’s parents aren’t particularly understanding or supportive in Christine’s movie adaptation, so it is easy to root for him against his bullies. If his parents and bullies were outright abusive, viewers probably wouldn’t make it to the movie’s third act where he wreaks violent vengeance on his tormentors via his possessed car. Carpenter’s movie needed to lighten up Arnie’s life story to make the plot less intensely bleak and the adaptation achieved this by dropping this dark subplot. Meanwhile, getting rid of goofier flourishes like the paranormal truck Petunia also ensured that Christine never felt too laughable, allowing Carpenter to find a perfect balance between camp and scares.

What Christine’s Ending Really Means

Christine’s entire story is about the ways that adolescence changes one’s personality and the movie leans into the perils of getting caught up in the pursuit of fancy material goods like a muscle car over valuing friendships and human relationships. Arnie’s failure to appreciate his friendship with Dennis and his unfair suspicion toward Leigh make him seek solace in Christine, drawing him further from his loved ones. Even if his car was supernatural, Arnie would already be abandoning good friends in favor of a status symbol. Christine’s brutal ending allows the Stephen King adaptation to show how this path can lead to horror and death.