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Cujo 4K

by Charlie Largent Oct 24, 2023

Cujo
Blu-ray 4K UltraHD
Kino Lorber
1983 / 93 Min. / 1.85.1
Starring Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone
Written by Don Carlos Dunaway, Lauren Currier
Photographed by Jan De Bont
Directed by Lewis Teague

If, as Charles Bukowski wrote, “Love is a dog from hell”, then Cujo qualifies as one of the great romantic films. Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh Kelly star as Donna and Vic Trenton, a couple whose life in the storybook town of Castle Rock, Maine is anything but a fairytale. Vic is an overworked account executive whose job is collapsing at his feet while his wife finds shelter in the arms of a local carpenter. It seems the only reason they remain together is the presence of their son Tad, an anxious kiddo beset by imaginary monsters that—metaphor alert—may be the manifestation of his parents’ marital problems.

Donna has her own Bête noire but it’s not imaginary, it’s a St. Bernard named Cujo who prowls the tall grass of a down-at-heel farmstead on the outskirts of town. Neglected by his owners and hungry for companionship, Cujo is a friendly giant who came too close to a rabid bat—now he’s experiencing the slow and painful transformation from playful puppy to drooling beast—a canine Larry Talbot. The roundabout ways in which Donna and Cujo finally come face to snout strain credulity—but director Lewis Teague’s greatest talent may lie in his ability to suspend most of our disbelief.

It’s Donna’s determination to save her marriage that sets the stage for that bloody showdown with the crazed Cujo; she breaks up with the handy man and discovers he’s a bit of a mad dog himself—he’s got a nasty jealous streak abetted by a volcanic temper. The breakup is ugly and extremely public, with Vic among the crowd of rubberneckers.

Storm clouds gather quickly; Vic takes a sabbatical from the marriage leaving his wife and son alone with a broken down Ford Pinto, one of the famously lousy cars of the 70s. With Tad in the passenger seat, Donna commandeers the shuddering auto to a grease monkey named Joe Camber who owns a farmhouse in the country—out back is a barn with a makeshift repair shop and a once-friendly St. Bernard.

Joe—naturally—is out of town when Donna and Tad arrive, but there to roll out the welcome mat is Cujo, 100% rabid and fully unhinged. The creature proceeds to dismantle the Pinto and if possible its occupants. On better days Donna is a buttoned-down woman who keeps her cards close to the vest—without the knowledge of her torrid affair, some would call her prim and proper. But like Dennis Weaver in Duel, she finds herself elevated from humdrum suburbanite to battle-scarred road warrior with an unexpected talent for do-or-die violence.

Though the sight of a defenseless Pinto being pummeled by a St. Bernard might have resulted in catcalls, Teague barrels over the skeptics: he frames the siege at Camber’s Farm with some of the same intensity of Peckinpah’s Siege of Trencher’s Farm. But this is not Straw Dogs or a metaphor for the territorial imperative—this is a monster movie in the thrall of Jaws and though it borrows liberally from Spielberg’s classic—they gotta get a bigger Pinto—it’s far from just a pale imitation of the bigger-budgeted shark adventure.

Teague was a graduate of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and Cujo is the work of an A+ student with an eye on cost-conscious but highly effective thrills and spills. Don Carlos Dunaway, Lauren Currier adapted Stephen King’s 1981 novel and they were wise to let the action propel the story.

The more than capable supporting cast includes Christopher Stone as Donna’s burly boy toy (Wallace and Stone dealt with a different kind of monster in The Howling) while Ed Lauter and Kaiulani Lee play the bickering Cambers. Lee’s sunken expression speaks volumes—she resembles a depression-era portrait by Walker Evans. The duo’s brief screen time manages to express the misery of a marriage far beyond the repair of any backwoods mechanic.

Jan De Bont, future director of Speed, was responsible for the excellent cinematography and it looks great on Kino Lorber’s new 4K Blu ray set. Glenn Erickson reports that the 4K transfer “brings out extra clarity in de Bont’s airy outdoor cinematography. We like the slightly misty look of an overcast morning scene.” The set also comes with an encyclopedic array of extras including two audio commentaries from Lewis Teague and several documentaries and interviews with cast and crew.

High on the list are interviews with Dee Wallace and the wizards who created the illusion of a rampaging St. Bernard including the stunt men and women Gary Morgan and Jean Coulter, and a conversation with Teresa Miller, the daughter of animal trainer Karl Miller.

Here’s Mick Garris on Cujo:

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