Halloween Review: Cujo

Holy crap, another one! It’s almost like I’m on a roll!

Today’s movie? Cujo. A 1983 film based on the 1981 Stephen King novel. One of my favourite books, too.

Let’s get started. We open without too much preamble, to show Cujo – a Saint Bernard of fluffy adorable – chasing a bunny rabbit. All the way into a cave filled with rabid bats. This isn’t going to end well.

As Cujo barks, the bats get angry, and one of them takes a bite out of the pup. Suddenly, Cujo isn’t interested in the game anymore, and we cut away to a house at night, where a little boy is clearly afraid of the shadows in his closet. Cos that’s where monsters lurk, don’t you know.

It’s… an odd scene. Very dreamlike, and from the way his parents react when he screams, they’re used to this display, and quickly brush aside his fears, reassuring him in the tired but loving way of parents who have recited the same speech many-a-time.

When we cut to morning, Tad – the kid – has moved all the furniture in his room to barricade the wardrobe. Heh. Determined kid. While the family goes about their morning ritual and seem very sweet together, Steve the carpenter/friend? shows up, and Tad’s mother Donna starts acting odd until he goes.

We soon learn that this is because Donna’s having an affair with Steve. Of course.

Not a lot happens for the next little bit. Just typical family interaction – Father Vic is aware that something isn’t right, but he doesn’t know what, or how to remedy.

Later, Vic tries to get his car looked at, and when the first mechanic tells him it’ll take a while, the postman sends him to Joe Camber, just up out of the way of civilisation.

There, we meet Joe and his wife and his son, and their dog – Cujo!

Donna gets anxious, but Brett (Joe Jr.) reassures that Cujo loves kids! And at the moment, he’s still in friendly mode, though we see the bite on his nose.

Cut to bedtime at Casa Dysfunctional, and Vic is reciting “The Monster Words” that he devised in order to reassure Tad. It seems to work, and when he retires to his own bed, Donna is looking at him with the look of “Oh crap, maybe I do still love you.”

The next thing we see is a news report regarding the cereal that Vic runs the ad campaign for. Thanks to some excess red dye, and a stomach bug going around, the brand takes a pounding when people think they’re throwing up blood. This means Vic and his coworker soon find out that they’ll have to leave town to try and fix this PR nightmare.

Oh by the way, did I mention that Joe is a mechanic? With loud machinery? Yeah, for some reason, that’s starting to hurt Cujo’s ears. Hmm.

Let’s cut to Donna. Oh good! She’s manning up and ending the affair. Considering Vic seems to be a genuinely nice guy, I approve. Because this is a movie, though, Steve isn’t going to take it well. Of course. And while he’s running outside to yell at her, Vic drives by.

More than a little confused by the scene, he turns back, but Donna’s already gone to pick up Tad from school. We get to see her car pitch a fit while they drive. Ominous.

Vic ‘s already home, and tries to coax an explanation out of his wife, but she acts innocent. As Boyfriend pointed out – statistically, more people in an affair are found out after they try to end it.

We cut to the Cambers, and see a couple of things – Cujo is growly, Joe is a drunk, and Mrs. Camber has bought show an expensive piece of equipment. Now how in the hell did she get the money?

She explains that she won the lottery - $5,000 – and Joe can have all that’s left if he’ll let her do one thing: take her son away for a week to visit her sister in Connecticut. She wants to ogive Brett an idea of a better life than the one they live, before he becomes his father.

Joe sees this as an excuse to booze and whore around, so seems fairly okay with it. Cujo, by the way, is still in a bad mood. Gee, I wonder what’s wrong.

Steve comes over to harass Donna, and tries to get his rape on. Donna throws him off, and Vic shows up just in time to see the awkward silence. Steve makes good his escape, and Vic’s eyebrows migrate up his forehead.

“Yes, or no?”

“…Yes.”

That’s all the answer he needs, and he goes upstairs.

Later that… day? I think? Vic is trying to fix Donna’s car before he goes, and trying to keep his temper in check around his son. Hard to reassure him when your world is crashing down around you, but he does a pretty good job.

He can’t fix the car, though, so he snipes at Donna to take the car to Joe’s to have it looked at while he’s gone.

It’s foggy the next morning. Brett is getting ready to leave down with his mother, and he steps outside to feed Cujo. The dog shows up out of the mist, not looking too happy or friendly, but he has enough of his senses left to recognise his master, and so he disappears again.

Brett doesn’t see enough to know what’s wrong, but he is unsettled.

Vic is leaving for his business trip, and things are understandably a wee bit icy. Donna runs after him before he can pull onto the road, though, and makes an appeal to him. It’s over, she wants him to know that much. Vic admits that he doesn’t know what he’s going to go, and drives off.

Back to Brett. He talks to his mother about Cujo, but she doesn’t want him to tell his father – she’s terrified he’ll change his mind and won’t let them go. “Just call him once we get there, and make sure he’s feeding Cujo. That way, he’ll check on him.”

We cut to Joe’s friend/drinking buddy/neighbour, and he’s just making too much noise for Cujo’s comfort.

So Cujo eats his face. Really – more stories should end this way.

Omnomnomnomnom.

Joe goes to visit his buddy, and finds the carnage of a Cujo attack. He pretty quickly figures out that all is not well, but instead of gtfo, decides to scope the house. He’s in the middle of trying to use the phone when Cujo shows up.

“OhmyGod, you’re rabid.”

OMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Let’s cut to Donna, shall we? Who is driving the car up to the Camber house as we speak. The car does not sound happy.

Donna calls out to see if anyone’s there, then gets distracted fiddling with her kid’s seatbelt. Cujo picks that moment to try jump in the window. It’s a struggle, but she manages to get his head out long enough to roll up the windows.

Tad, understandably, wants to go home. But of course, the car won’t start. They’re trapped in king Cujo’s territory, and they’re at least 6 miles away from help.

Cue a long, hot wait in the car for the engine to die down. After a while, they manage to get it started, but when Donna’s trying to reverse it, it dies again. Well, shit.

“Mommy, can he eat his way in here?”

Who knows, kid. At this point, my money is not on the car.

The sun’s setting, and they’re still trapped. Vic tries calling home, but – and again, of course – there’s no answer.

Next drama? Tad has to pee. Donna agrees to open the door a crack, not realizing that Cujo has camped out in front of the car. Fortuitously, though, the phone inside starts to ring, and the noise sends Cujo into enough of a frenzy that he ignores the car for a while.

The next day, things are looking grim. The mailman isn’t coming (he knows they’re all out of town up that back road), it’s high summer and they don’t have much water, the car’s battery is dead…

There’s a baseball bat on the ground, though, and Donna starts eyeing it.

The phone starts ringing, and it drives Cujo into another frenzy, but this time he takes it out on the car. And man, you do not want an angry Saint Bernard mauling your car.

Vic is still trying to call them, and getting all the more anxious, while his coworker is only focused on the job at hand.

And back to Donna. Man, that was quick. These jump cuts are disorienting.

Donna quietly sneaks out of the car, and Cujo gets the jump on her, even managing to bite her. She changes her mind about getting the baseball bat, but Cujo follows her into the car and keeps savaging. Donna drives Cujo back with her thermos, though she’s not looking too good. And man, Tad will not stop screaming.

This segues into a nightmare for Vic, who decides he has to go back. And now that that scene is done, we’re back to Cujo-land again. Now, it’s basically just a staring contest/waiting game. Wonder what’ll happen if Donna goes mad and eats her kid.

Come the morning, Donna’s woken by Tad pitching a fit. No, really. He’s having a seizure. See, I knew there was a reason I hated summer. Donna manages to pull him out of it, though.

Meanwhile, Steve breaks into the house, and decides to trash it.

So, of course, when Vic gets home, he calls the cops, thinking Steve has kidnapped them. The cops ask where the car would be, though, and when Vic mentions the Cambers, they send someone out. Hi-yo Cujo, away!

While Cujo eats the cop, and Donna fails to get the dented door open, Tad throws another fit. Man, kid, terrible timing.

When the cops go back to Vic and say that Steve admitted to the home-wrecking (see what I did, thar?), but not the kidnapping, and also mentions that the cop they sent to the Cambers’ hasn’t called in, Vic runs off. In his… convertible car.

Tad’s kinda not really moving, so Donna snaps and gets out of the car, making it this time to the baseball bat. Battle of the rabid ensues, but when Cujo manages to break the baseball bat, Donna’s able to use it as a stake. She then finds the cop’s gun, and has started to lose reason, so has a little bit of trouble getting back into the car to get Tad.

She manages with some good old violence, though, gets inside, and tries to revive Tad.

She succeeds, and of course this is when a not-dead Cujo jumps through the window. So Donna shoots him, and Vic arrives.

Aw, happy ending.

You know, I think I prefer the book ending. In that, Tad died, and Donna actually bit a few people before she got treated. That, on top of the random jump-cutting, doesn’t make this the best of Stephen King translations. But overall, it’s not that bad.