Cujo

Famed writer, Stephen King, has made a name for himself through his library-amount of stories that he’s created throughout his life and has thrived on the success it has brought him, but also enjoys the experience that comes with creating and publishing said stories. Being a writer who, while not always great in delivery, is great at concept and build-up, a lot of his ideas honestly carry a lot of his work and keeps his audience engaged despite what could come from its conclusion (like giant space spider demons or flying meatballs that devour time). But where this works the most is in his stories that aren’t supernatural, instead relying on an uncomfortable environment to be the main threat of the story, with the one of topic today, Cujo, being one of them that was made into a movie in 1983. Set in the state of Maine (obviously), lives a quiet basic family. Within this family, the mother, Donna (played by Dee Wallace), is trying to mend things with her husband after she is caught having an affair. Wanting things to work out for their son, Tad (played by Danny Pintauro), they decide to fix things up after the husband comes back from a business venture which involves a scandal with his own created cereal. Tasked with fixing the car at an isolated farmhouse, the mother and son duo are met with unexpected problems when the family is nowhere to be found, and the only other living thing there is a Saint Bernard dog named Cujo, who just so happens to have become rabid and responds by trying to attack them. Stuck in their car in a blistering heat and with no manner of contacting anyone, the two are locked in a deadly situation and will have to find a way to escape this prison before either the heat or the dog finishes them off. With the novel released in 1981 and being based on a scary situation King himself suffered, Cujo adopts a similar format to a majority of King’s ‘’stuck in one place’’ type stories and uses that format to create some legitimate suspense and unique fear, which is something this movie manages to capture nicely enough. Despite its flaws, this is a perfectly solid adaptation of King’s story.

The one thing really driving this story is the premise and method of scaring the audience. Overall, the story-line for this story is nothing special and honestly feels pretty basic, especially for someone like King who usually tries to be a bit more elaborate with his stories when building up to the real threat. On the plus side of this, the idea of being stuck in a car with a rabid dog on the outside is a great idea for a scary story, and one that can definitely come with some realistic fear behind it. It’s a premise that adds nice twists to typical scary formats as a Saint Bernard dog is not one that is usually associated with being scary, so it feels like an experiment that proved effective. For the most part, the stuff in the car is the better part of the movie. Despite being a little repetitive in nature, the tension for the scene is kept pretty high and it does capture this sweaty claustrophobic atmosphere that comes from the location and the situation. On that level, its handled pretty nicely, what isn’t handled very well is the context and lack of story piecing it together. Within King’s work, his examples of solitary stories like Misery, 1408, and Gerald’s Game, definitely relied on the isolated location and the unique aspects of fear that came with that experience, but they also had dissection of character within that experience and that allowed for more interesting scenarios that wasn’t just ‘’get out alive’’. Here, the movie only has that mentality gong in because beforehand, what it did offer was bland at best and pointless at worst with the additional scripting by Don Carlos Dunaway and Barbara Turner not bringing much to the table to evolve the original short source. It didn’t illicit any revelation or backstory worth being engrossed by, so it wasn’t as engaging as it could have been and the direction by Lewis Teague (who would go on to direct another Stephen King film with the 1985 film, Cat’s Eye) being solid at conveying the harsh fear factor of King’s work, but not doing a lot with the more subdued elements even if it is passable.

What usually saves King’s stories are his leads and his concepts, and thankfully, both are handled nicely enough. The mother is written pretty inconsistently in the film (having her have an affair for no reason is pretty bad writing) and its not a character that changed or developed throughout the movie, even though it would have been pretty easy to do so with this set-up. But instead of revealing her past and having her face her issues through this traumatic event, it felt like nothing specifically was gained or earned from this experience, so nothing feels like it utilized the situation to further a character, rather these characters were set up specifically just to survive this experience, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of the movie operates, where the story doesn’t really offer anything productive, but instead just cycles through events in order to get to the car. Thankfully, the acting is honestly pretty good, managing to make every scene feel genuine enough just through how a majority of the cast acts it. It doesn’t suffer from the typical over-the-top hoakiness that mostly plagues King’s adaptation of his scary stories. Dee Wallace does a very good job as the mother in this; despite not having much to work with, she really does sell the typical housewife who is brought to the brink through this traumatic experience. The kid is thankfully not as annoying as he would look to be, and most of the other actors are perfectly serviceable as well. Even the whole situation around Cujo; being a metaphor for not only the dangers of abusing animals and shaping something that should be sweet and innocent into something the exact opposite, but even that isn’t handled evenly either as Cujo is never portrayed as anything but evil since the first shot of the movie. With that said though, they do make him look pretty creepy and disgusting, so he is a pretty intimidating threat.

For what this movie lacks in substance, its central event does prove memorable at least, as it does feel like a lot of the movie (and even the book) is banking on what that represents. Having a lot of the climax take place in a single car isolated from the rest of the world, it is a pretty cramped situation, and it is shot accordingly. It thankfully isn’t a movie that relies on too many jump scares or even that many traditional scary movie tropes (especially ones that King is famous for in his adaptions), and therefore the movie isn’t really that silly. The idea does have a somewhat goofy element to it if it’s really thought about (most animal-based horror movies can be pretty silly except if it’s a shark), and the movie actually managed to find a nice balance between making it not overly serious and gloomy to the point where it becomes obvious, but still grounded enough where it feels like its legitimately suspense. Its hard to say the movie is overall that scary, but it is pretty tense and uncomfortable during the final act due to the panicked acting, the frantic camerawork by Jan de Bont, and the harshness that comes from the situation. The way the dog moves and acts does feel pretty genuine to the point where the realistic feeling of this animal having the ability to rip you apart is pretty frightening, especially when its done on a dog not known for being very aggressive. The music for the movie is a perfect representation of how this movie works with its tone; composer Charles Bernstein made a score that does feel a little overly dramatic and bombastic at times, but it never quite kills the mood and still manages to work thanks to the previously set-up atmosphere.

Cujo, in comparison to a lot of King’s other scary adaptation, is honestly done fine all things considered. Even taking out the fact that it kept a majority of the stuff the same (mainly because it wasn’t a very long story and it couldn’t really change too much anyway), and for those that like the story and concept, it’s going to work perfectly fine here. It definitely does have its issues and is really lacking in any character or story depth, which this really could’ve benefited from, but the movie’s reception has been pretty split, so it must be a movie that might have to win you over with the third act alone. The acting is good, and the premise is decent enough, but there are a lot of the King adaptation’s about being secluded and unable to fight against a non-supernatural threat, which handled themselves a lot better and a lot more intriguing. Perfectly serviceably, but honestly not much else after that, decide if this is a movie you want to sink your teeth into.