CUJO

US, 1983, 89 minutes, Colour.
Dee Wallace, Christopher Stone, Danny Pintauro, Ed Lauter, Daniel Hugh Kelly.
Directed by Lewis Teague.

Cujo is an excellent version of Stephen King's horror novel. Unlike many of King's other novels where the emphasis is on the 'supernatural', this film shows a St. Bernard dog infected with rabies and then turning against human beings. The main focus of the film is the menacing of a mother and her young son in their car in an isolated area.

Dee Wallace (The Howling, E.T.) is very good as the mother. There is an excellent performance by as her son Danny. The film is made more complex by the background plot where the mother is involved with an affair, breaks it off, and somehow the blame for her affair is linked with her being menaced by Cujo. The film was directed by Lewis Teague (The Lady in Red, Alligator).

1. The impact of the film as a thriller, as a moral fable?

2. The work of Stephen King, his themes: emotions fears, nature, the natural order, physical and moral order, danger, salvation and redemption? Reality and fantasy? The world of the family? The world of advertising?

3. The film as a piece of Americana: the details of town life, affluence, the world of the child, the world of adults, the outsiders?

4. Cujo and the audience response to the St Bernard? The lyrical prologue, the chasing of the rabbit, the American countryside, the burrow and the bat, the bite, the infection, the sore, the rabies and the disintegration of Cujo? Beginning to prowl? The relationship with the boy? The family leaving? The attacks, killing? The lurking around the house, the men ace, the growl? Driven berserk by the phone call? The irony of the caring phone calls driving Cujo mad? His presence on the farm, Donna and Danny in the car, his circling them, lurking, frightening them, the physical attacks on the car, the continued phone calls, his cunning, desperation? A symbol of fear? The mother getting outside the car and Cujo's attacking her? The policeman and his being mauled? Donna and the confrontation with Cujo, shooting him? His final rush at her? The audience's feelings for the infected dog? The dog as a symbol of evil, infection, menace?

5. Danny and his initial fears, his nightmares, the parents and their love for their boy, helping him? Words, images? Night and light, darkness? Daylight and reality? School, friend ships, fights? His relationship with his mother? Father? Home details? His father's leaving home? His mother's care? The tensions between husband and wife? His going in the car, his fears, the menace of the dog, his terrified reaction, being dehydrated, needing moisture, his sleeping? The experience of the menace? The being saved by his mother?

6. Donna and her role as mother, helping her son? Her love for her husband? The details of ordinary life? The discovery of the affair? The tensions? The fight and the break? Her husband's leaving and her desperation? Admitting the truth, hopes for the future? The first visit to the garage and seeing Cujo? The contrast with the return? Being trapped, using her wits, fear, care for her son, moisture, dehydration? Her attempts to leave the car and the attack? The policeman? Her finally leaving the car, the shooting of Cujo? Saving her son, the reconciliation with her husband? Her ordeal seen as a kind of atonement for the affair?

7. The father and his care for his son, his work, the ads and the indications of danger, campaign, the discovery of the affair, the clash with his wife, leaving home, love for them, the meals, his concern, the hotel, walking out on the deal, driving, the discovery of the wrecked house, the police, his visit to the garage? Reconciliation?

8. The local handyman and his having an affair with Donna, the clash, his coming to destroy the house - the brute image and the comparisons with the rabid Cujo?

9. The repairs man, his family, their squalid lifestyle, his brutality, his wife winning the lottery, their going on holidays, leaving Cujo, the phone calls, his alternate plans, his friend, Cujo's attack and their deaths?

10. The film's attention to detail: the cars, the postman, the phone calls, the police? The town yet the isolation?

11. The background of the world of commercials? Ads and their truth, deception? money and ad campaigns?

12. The film as a parable of the menace of evil, nature menacing, human beings at the whim of nature? The moral issues?