Movie Review: Cujo (1983)

Cujo is a 1983 horror film directed by Lewis Teague and based off the book of the same name by Stephen King. Now I'm a gigantic Stephen King buff. His career has inspired me in endless ways and I always enjoy watching his films, reading his writing, and exploring the psychosis of one of the best authors to ever walk the earth. Cujo is a movie that I've seen before, but only once as a kid. This movie scared the crap out of me when I was younger and I was looking forward to seeing what still scared me today. Right off the bat, I noticed that this movie is very dated. Between the 1980s horror-style score and the large, bold, white graphics this movie proved to be an older film. It does not really hold up all that well all these years later and to some that might be a flaw. Others may view it's older tone as a pro and praise it as being a classic. I'm somewhere in between those two. While I love the movie Cujo in a nostalgic way, this movie actually surprised me in how good it was. This is a good movie and I wasn't expecting all that much from a film like this. The film stars Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, and Danny Pintauro. The performances are great in this film and that's how the movie maintains a scary, disturbing, uneasy tone. Which leads me to my next point which is that while Cujo scared me years ago, it doesn't do the same today. While the child performance (Pintauro) in this movie is frightening (especially in the car scene) the film itself doesn't really provide all that many scares. Cujo himself ends up being more of an object of our sympathy. After all, it was not the dog's fault that he'd been bit by a bat. There's also a subplot about a wife cheating on her husband. While it does create the necessary story elements for Cujo to strike, it doesn't seem like we need to have it. The story could flow perfectly without a dramatic subplot and that's where this movie felt odd to me. Rewatching this movie, I noticed how tacked on certain elements were. The subplot doesn't feel like a necessity nor does it contribute to the story as a whole. Cujo is a good movie, but it does feel uneven and choppy which causes it to be a rather odd sensation to watch. I enjoyed this movie, but it's not perfection at it's finest. Overall, Cujo is a good, entertaining, greatly acted film that does have not needed story lines and isn't quite the scare fest that I recall. Two stars