Cujo (1983)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Donna Trenton	Dee Wallace
Vic Trenton	Daniel Hugh-Kelly	½
Tad Trenton	Danny Pintauro	½
Steve Kemp	Christopher Stone	½
Joe Camber	Ed Lauter	½
Charity Camber	Kaiulani Lee
Brett Camber	Billy Jacobi

Kritikk

I've always found that Stephen King was at his best when dealing with real and everyday horrors, as opposed to the supernatural, and this tight, well-spun and absolutely spine-tingling thriller is one of the best examples of just that. The story of how a 6-year-old boy and his troubled family end up face-to-face with a rabid dog is told straightforwardly and at face-value by director Lewis Teague (Alligator, The Jewel of the Nile), who wants his characters to be believable and the terror to be concrete, unhidden and very much palpable. He succeeds, largely thanks to some fantastic acting by Dee Wallace and Danny Pintauro as the mother and child (although I'm not entirely convinced that all of Pintauro's work here is in fact acting), and because he knows which buttons to push and how much to push them. For parents, Cujo is visceral, going straight for the gut. And for dog-lovers, it's heart-rending. We can catch a glimpse of that good-natured St. Bernard behind his rabid behaviour, and what a clever and effective move this is; turning a St. Bernard, the dogs' symbol of helpfulness, into a deranged killer. He's as scary as Jack Torrane in The Shining, and almost as well captured on film thanks to Teague and his crew's excellent craftsmanship. When it all settles, we don't feel either cheated or rewarded; we feel we've earned the cessation after the emotional investment we've put in.