Cujo (1983)

[baumer]

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[K1stpierre]

This is just a prime example where sometimes all you need to make a great thriller, is a basic premise. You can describe this movie in one sentence: A dog becomes infected with a disease and suddenly becomes violent and terrorizes people. Sure, it doesn't sound great, but boy the film really does deliver. Big time. This is just one of those movies that had me gripping my seat throughout the last half hour when the mom is trapped in her car with her son. This movie blew me away, since I wasn't expecting it to be great. Overall, I'd give it a 9/10, A overall. This is a great thriller.

[CaptainJackSparrow]

A great, creepy, film. 5/5

[baumer]

We all know Cujo is a giant St. Bernard that has to kill because he is rabid. The film works as a horror film because of that concept, but this film and the story writer behind it believe that paybacks are a bitch. Retribution is always around the corner and when it is your time, you don't know if it is going to from a guy in a hockey mask, a massive great white shark,a 58 red and white Plymouth Fury, some idiot with long finger knives or a lovable Saint Bernard. Whatever it is though, sin always accounted for. Cujo subscribes to that theory.

Everyone that dies in this film, with the exception of maybe one, does so because they are not very likable people to begin with. They are all tainted and when Cujo gets a hold of them, we are almost glad that he wants their blood. But it is the climax of the film that is the most intriguing. Because here we have a woman who has gotten rid of her sin. But she now has to face the music not for what she is doing, but for what she has done. And if you read the book, you will see that it sticks to that theory and message much more than the film does. It is understood that Cujo has to have a happy Hollywood ending, and that is fine, but the book tells a much more clear yet paradoxically convoluted tale of a boy, his dog, and how sin is never really forgiven.

What is also great about Cujo is how it shows the dog coming unravelled. We see the transformation from lovable suck of a family dog, to vicious killing machine that has an insatiable need for blood. We see his nose get more wet, we see how certain noises bother him more and we see how much saliva this dog has stored up in his nasty mouth.

Cujo is a good movie. It is scary, especially the last half hour and it actually has a point. It also does a fairly good job of bringing King's vision to life. It is not easy to do that, after all King has a very vivid imagination. But Cujo comes close. Very close.

 

8.5/10

[baumer]

This is one of the films on Fear Fest on AMC for the next little while.  It really holds up well and Dee Wallace Stone really should have been nominated for an Oscar.