Steven King has since admitted he wrote the novel of Cujo while completed wacked on cocaine, and as a result can’t remember anything about it – even though he likes the result. It’s a very simple, basic story – a dog becomes rabid and terrorises and mother and her child in her car.
They do it as a slow burn, using lots of character stuff in the first half – mum (Dee Wallace, fresh off ET) is having an affair (with Chris Stone, Wallace’s real-life husband), so hubby, who’s having job troubles, gets jacked off. Well acted, particularly by Wallace as a flawed super-mom and Danny Pintauro as her kid, who is very good at acting terrified. The dog stuff is full on action at the end – mostly Stone and Pintauro stuck in a car. No awesomely great twists or anything – it’s not Duel – but it’s got strong atmosphere and believability. Probably director Lewis Teague’s best film.
The DVD has an interesting commentary by Teague, where he talks about getting the film (King wanted him after seeing Alligator although another director came in before Teague got it); the fact it rained a lot despite wanting to be set during a heatwave; most of the money came from a company in Salt Lake City and a lot of Mormons worked on it; the studio who released the film requested that it be trimmed to get to the dog attack stuff quicker but test screenings resulted in proving this was less effective. Teague sounds like a likeable, down-to-earth trap – he kind of vanished as a features director after the 90s.
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