Is the book better than the movie?

Stephen King's books are always better than their adaptations.

I read the book in the summer of 1983. Even though that's a long time ago I remember the book was excellent. It obviously was written when King was going through his cocaine binges, which are by far his best years. I'll rate the book Christine an 8.5 out of 10.

I saw the movie around Christmas of 1983, just a few months after I read the book. John Carpenter did a good job technically, and there were some really cool scenes along with a sometimes riveting score. I think it hurt a lot that I had already read the book, as I always knew what was coming. So, I'll say Christine is a good, but not great, movie. 7.5 out of 10.

For Carpenter to make a 7.5 movie in 1983 is rather disappointing.

The Novels for the most part will always be better in the sense they're more descriptive, however, this movie ROCKS right down to the no name casting at the time this movie was made in 1983 and considering I'm a product of the 80's, this movie hit home quite well.. I could relate to Arnie at the time in how he was bullied because I too was bullied in High School, but more from the jocks than the burnouts like the movie portrayed.. Still, even if they were to attempt to remake this, it wouldn't be any better FX wise because you can only make a haunted 57 Chevy come back to life in only so many ways..

I just finished re-reading the book today for the first time in 20+ years and immediately re-watched the movie for the first time in about the same time. I found myself surprised by how different the book was from what I chiefly remembered from the movie--a lot of the surface stuff is the same, but there's a lot of MAJOR differences, which I won't go into here if you're planning on reading the book (if you want me to, let me know, but if you're planning to read the book, which you should, you shouldn't hear any spoilers).

As far as ratings, it's a solid King book, not one of his best, but certainly a fun, thrilling read, with some really amazing parts and at least 1 or 2 legendary characters (specifically Darnell, who's really short-changed in the film, with barely 2 scenes).

The movie would probably be a lot better, as you could say of most King movies based on books (hell, most movies based on books in general), if you hadn't read the book. I was surprised at how rushed some things felt, even for a near-2 hour movie, at least two specific things happen in the movie that made me feel like "Wait, what, how did we get here? There's no reason for these characters to be feeling/behaving this way yet!" Now I'm really hoping for a well-done miniseries like the recent The Stand (except, like I said...well done.)

I thought it was better. I still like the movie as it's own thing though, since it's a John Carpenter film.

both the novel and the movie are great but the movie is different than the novel.

the novel is pretty dark and the ending is pretty much sad with the deaths of Arnie and his mother dying from a crazy hitchhiker incident.

that and Christine having the corpse of Micheal inside her and Micheal's body crashing through into Darnell's office that was pretty grisly. Leigh got hit pretty bad too during that part with her head bleeding.

Plus all the deaths happened during the winter time in the novel. That and still weird to learn that Christine is defeated by a cement truck and not a bulldozer like in the movie

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The movie would've benefited more from having Carpenter's distinct ambiguity instead of King's inability to let the audience put the pieces together. You can tell Carpenter is trying to add the sense of whether or not the car is actually alive or if Arnie is just crazy, but King wanted it to be front and center that Christine is sentient and sassy.