Robert Prosky Archives | Deep Focus Review

Christine

Brian Eggert — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 15:04:44 +0000

Few names deserve a place over the title of a Stephen King adaptation. John Carpenter’s is one of them. The director made Christine in 1983 from the source novel published earlier that year, and the resulting film balances both creative voices. The adaptation reflects some of King’s signature themes: horror rooted in high school trauma, possession (hotels, animals, and inanimate objects), and the entrenched psychology of his characters. But Carpenter’s production reimagines the book for the screen, transforming the titular killer car from a vessel for a maligned spirit into a faceless, unknowable threat—an abyss of evil that reflects and distorts its driver. When an engine revs over the opening credits, unaccompanied by music, it distills Carpenter’s ambiguous intent. The filmmaker embraces the terror of the unknown and the implication of evil, relying less on exposition than powerful images to tell his story. More than the particulars of the screenplay’s adaptation, Carpenter knows the classic car’s presence is powerful and can instill terror because it warps a familiar image from Americana into something unknowable and twisted. Blending Carpenter’s and King’s sensibilities, Christine idles at the crossroads where two horror masters converge. The full review is currently exclusive to Patreon subscribers. […]

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Last Action Hero

Brian Eggert — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 13:30:19 +0000

Somewhere between Planet Hollywood restaurants and Last Action Hero, Hollywood’s hubris spun out of control in the 1990s. Tinsel Town has always been self-referential and basked in its own glow. But in the ‘90s, its self-congratulatory nature got swept up in action-hero celebrity worship, boosting the likes of egomaniacs such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and others into commercial icons who sold the general notion of Hollywood to the masses, as opposed to building the concept with quality storytelling. Released in 1993, Last Action Hero is a movie made by a committee—half a dozen screenwriters, studio execs, and Schwarzenegger exercising his star power—with each member having a different idea of what the movie should be. The outcome is hollow and messy. Whole scenes, lines of dialogue, and subplots don’t make any sense because of its many rewrites and rushed post-production schedule. Yet, there’s enough gloss and enthusiasm behind this ungainly product that warrants occasional admiration, though not enough to smooth out its lumpy, patchwork construction. In a shut-your-brain-off kind of way, it’s entertaining enough. But it’s more fascinating as a behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood’s worst impulse to engineer a self-satisfied blockbuster. But let’s start by setting aside […]

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