A trip anew down ‘Stephen King adaptions’ lane with my fifteen year old daughter brings this relentless-monster-as-rabid-Saint-Bernard entry, which may not come attached with the same shining first-class filmmaker pedigree as a De Palma, a Kubrick, a Romero, a Carpenter, a Hooper or a Cronenberg helming it as the others so far did, yet still had an interesting — shall we say with no disparagement intended (I mean, just cuz you ain’t a cinematic legend, doesn’t mean you ain’t worthy!) – second tier genre director, this one straight from the legendary Roger Corman assembly line, that being Lewis “Alligator” Teague, who manages to muster up an effective little tale of suspense, including an unsettling and harrowing final two acts, the film’s centerpiece, a siege on a trapped mother and young son in a stalled car outside an abandoned farmhouse — boiling hot inside the car, large vicious dog outside – which turns into an almost perfectly realized film school exercise in crafting white-knuckle cinematic suspense through sound, carefully-chosen imagery, editing and performance (hell, I already knew the outcome — having read both book and seen the film before — and yet I was still swept up in the intensity).

Of the King versions so far, this one hues, in rather didactic fashion (giving a clue perhaps as to why it appealed more to a second tier director rather than a visionary auteur), to King’s world-view (at the time anyway… haven’t read much since “It”, to be fair), a perspective that explains a big part of his underlying mass popularity; namely, the graceful position awarded the modern nuclear family as humanity’s essential institution, worth protecting against the attack of ‘monsters’ (and that includes poor old Cujo, a once docile and friendly big dope of a dog, turned grotesque and irredeemably savage from an infected bat bite)… because, you see, families may be afflicted with affairs, imaginary closet monsters (in this case, displayed in a sequence that stands out as by far the most inspired of the first act, with an impressively evocative swaying camera shot and a special second production set built of Tad’s bedroom to replicate the surreal terror experienced in the young boy’s mind) and menacing rabid dogs… but with a little love, caring and a helping of bourgeoise liberal tenderness, all can be overcome… and the family preserved.

The first act (before shit turns really intense) is interesting enough, the narrative laying out both the framework contrasting the two families — one being the financially successful Trentons, Donna and Vic (Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh-Kelly), seemingly living the American Dream with their young son Tad (Danny Pintauro), only for Vic to discover that the guilt-laden Donna is having an affair with the local stud — and Vic’s good friend, no less — Steve (Christopher Stone), and the other the more troubled working class Cambers, led by abusive drunken patriarch Joe (Ed Lauter), owner of the initially gentle, slobbering Cujo – and also setting up the slightly contrived, too convenient (something my daughter pointed out as well) sequence of events leading up to the film’s impressively tense narrative set-pieces (i.e., Vic going away on an urgent business trip, Mama Cambers escaping with her son to visit her sister out of town, argument between Donna and Vic, and finally, the Trenton’s broken down car, puttering… and just… making it… before it conks out for good pulling up to the now-isolated Cambers garage in the middle of nowhere… with Donna and Tad having no clue there’s no one but a rabid dog home, one with a newly acquired taste for human blood).

While the acting in the first act is generally all around adequate (with only Hugh-Kelly’s Vic coming across as a bit of a stiff), it’s in the breathtaking two-act siege that, along with almost every other aspect of the movie, the performances by a harried, desperate Stone and the young terrified Pintauro, raise to a whole new level of tortured intensity. Having just recently seen the staggeringly devastating, perhaps-greatest-of-all anti-war films, the Russian Come and See at Cinéma Moderne (with my excited scribblings coming soon) and learning from local film critic Justine Smith who introduced it that the young lead literally suffered PTSD, his impressionable mind traumatized and scarred by the horrifyingly brutal simulations he acted his way through, watching Tad shrieking in utter horror at the relentless bestial attacks on the car (with a heart-stopping jump scare to get it started), the ferocious dog playing out (with, I have to say, the writer admirably, almost psychopathically, heaping on the cruelty) as a living embodiment of the imaginary ‘monster in his closet’ at home (only this one won’t go away no matter how many times the boy recites the writ of protection his father concocted for him), then ultimately descending into unsettling physical convulsions, his eyes rolling back in his head, from the mixture of supreme terror and overwhelming mid-day heat, with the at-her-wits-end mother screaming at the boy, it’s a wonder that Pintauro himself didn’t experience some residual emotional after-shocks himself. The fact that he didn’t (at least that’s what he says in the interview extras on the DVD), and yet that kinda experience was elicited in the film from the two performers, tells you all you need to know about the job Teague did with them.

I’m also fond of the continuity that the Cujo helmers honored regarding Castle Rock Sherriff Bannerman (played herein by Sandy Ward, and more memorably by excellent character actor Tom Skerritt in David Cronenberg’s excellent King adaption The Dead Zone from the same year), with the character, as he did in the King novels, jumping across the two tales (though this is about as involved in the author’s substantial Castle Rock/Randall Flag mythos as I ever got, which I understand has grown considerably in scope and complexity over the years, and over many books, with only the hardened fanatics even able to follow it in its entirety).

There a few elements here and there that don’t quite work for me in the film; such as, the occasional moving shot that ends up drawing too much attention to itself, more a cool image than one from the mind of an obsessive auteur driven to move the camera in ways that express his vision (excluding the aforementioned impressive bedroom ‘monster in the closest’ sequence and the beautiful landscape shots – gotta hand it to cinematographer Jan de Bont, he certainly knew how to capture the impressive California coastline, even if looking nothing like Stephen King’s fictional Castle Rock, Maine where it’s pretending to be), and the ‘big’ thematic score, including prominent horns, that’s trying too hard to sound like John Williams doing a Spielberg film (more specifically, that slightly more world-famous Killer ‘Animal’ film, Jaws) rather than the smaller, more intimate experience that would have worked much better (don’t wanna rag on composer Charles Bernstein too much though… he did it give us that unforgettably propulsive, absolutely bonkers ‘poltergeist rape’ theme from Sidney J. Furie’s The Entity from the year before).

While the film provides a mostly faithful adaption of the novel, most people are aware that there is one fairly large plot point changed, undoubtedly a concession to audience expectation (let’s just say… the general feeling from producers is that your average cinemagoer doesn’t necessarily wanna be subjected to an hour’s worth of a woman and her child being absolutely terrified, as deliciously crafted as it all is… for it to end on a downbeat note); and while this is the kind of thing that would normally drive me up the wall… in this case, I didn’t mind it. As I said, I knew what was coming and was still thrilled and scared by the effectiveness of the filmmaking.

Flaws and all, the film ultimately comes down to that final hour-long absolutely harrowing assault, the intense effectiveness of which elevates Cujo to the status of being another successful Stephen King cinematic adaption.

Six movies and a television mini-series. An impressive seven for seven, right out of the gate. Trouble might be just ahead though… next up (whenever we get to it)… Children of the Corn. Who knows? Maybe it’s aged well. I did love the short story it’s based on.

Buck A Review   horror   stephen king