Christine

A bullied teenager buys a wrecked 1958 Plymouth Fury and restores it, and the car restores him, and then it starts removing the people in his way.

Carpenter took it as a job between passion projects and it shows the craftsman rather than the auteur, which turns out to be enough. The car repairing itself in reverse, panels un-crumpling in the dark, is achieved with hydraulics and reversed film and is the best effect in it.

The real horror is the boy. Arnie changes from a victim into something arrogant and cruel, and the film is clear that the car is drawing out what was there, not adding it.

The soundtrack of period rock, with Christine choosing her own songs on the radio to taunt people, is a Carpenter idea and one of his best.

It is minor King and better made than most major King.