Themes: Woman In Jeopardy, Man's Best Friend, When Animals Attack
Main Cast: Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter
Release Year: 1983
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Based on a Stephen King novel, Cujo is not as menacing or as frightening as other film adaptations of King's popular stories and especially cannot compare to the 1976 Carrie. Cujo is a happy St. Bernard until he is bitten on the nose by a rabid bat and slowly begins manifesting the symptoms of his fatal illness. His condition deteriorates as he attacks people again and again, until finally, mom Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) are trapped inside the family car with Cujo lurking nearby, set to kill them any way he can. A showdown is inevitable but is as predictable as the rest of the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
This widely reviled adaptation of Stephen King's best-selling novel about a viciously rabid dog actually looks better with age. True, story lines move in and out of the first half of the film, inconsistencies abound, and the viewer may be just about to give up hope when Donna (Dee Wallace) and her young son, Tad (Danny Pintauro), pull into a junkyard in a broken-down car. From that point on, the film becomes a sort of landlocked Jaws, as mother and son are trapped in the stalled machine by the bloody, slobbering hellhound waiting just outside. The final 40 minutes are surprisingly scary, as director Lewis Teague builds the tension to a fever-pitch with a combination of stunning attack sequences and effective hysterical-mother moments inside the car. Wallace is outstanding in one of her better performances, but cinematographer Jan De Bont (who later directed The Haunting and Twister) is the real star of the show and rarely falters. Neil Travis' editing deserves special praise for enhancing the horror of the dog attacks, but the music (by Charles Bernstein) is awful. Still, if one can patiently withstand the dumb first half, there are plenty of thrills, chills, and a great jump-scene later in the film. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Kaiulani Lee - Charity Camber; Billy Jayne - Brett Camber; Mills Watson - Gary Pervier; Robert Behling - Fournier; Terence Donovan; Bob Elross - Meara; Jerry Hardin - Masen; Merritt Olsen - Professor; Arthur Rosenberg - Roger Breakstone; Sandy Ward - Bannerman; Daniel H. Blatt; Clare Nono - Lady Reporter
Credit
Neil Machlis - Associate Producer, Judith Holstra - Casting, Marcia Ross - Casting, Jack Buehler - Costume Designer, Jerry Grandey - First Assistant Director, Lewis Teague - Director, Neil Travis - Editor, Charles Bernstein - Composer (Music Score), Peter Knowlton - Makeup, Peter Knowlton - Makeup Special Effects, Guy J. Comtois - Production Designer, Jan de Bont - Cinematographer, Daniel H. Blatt - Producer, Robert Singer - Producer, Joseph T. Garrity - Set Designer, Rick H. Josephsen - Special Effects, Mark Ulano - Sound/Sound Designer, Lauren Currier - Screenwriter, Don Carlos Dunaway - Screenwriter, Stephen King - Book Author
Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace-Stone) is a frustrated suburban housewife whose life is in turmoil after her husband learns about her having an affair. Brett Camber (Billy Jayne) is a young boy and a son of a mechanic (Ed Lauter) whose only companion is a St. Bernard named "Cujo." Cujo is bitten by a bat with rabies and his behavior begins to change. When Donna and her young son Tad drive out to the home where Cujo and his owners live, the gentle Cujo has been driven insane by rabies and has killed one of his owners. Worse, their car gives out near the mechanic's house, and Donna and Tad are trapped inside while the massive dog waits outside, attacking repeatedly.
Best young supporting actor in a motion picture (Danny Pintauro) (nominated)
Reception
Reviews of the film were mixed, and a more recent collation of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes has earned Cujo a "rotten" rating of 58%. Eleanor Mannikka of the New York Times wrote that:
Cujo is not as menacing or frightening as other film adaptations of King's popular stories and especially can not compare to the 1976 Carrie...His condition deteriorates as he attacks people again and again, until finally, mom Donna Trenton and her son Tad are trapped inside the family car with Cujo lurking nearby, set to kill them any way he can. A showdown is inevitable but is just as predictable as the rest of the film.
Distribution
Though Warner Bros. originally distributed the film theatrically, and for a time, held original home video rights, the main rights actually originally stood with the producing company, Taft Entertainment (under copyright holder Sunn Classic Pictures). Taft's productions were distributed on TV and home video by its subsidiary, Worldvision. In 1991, Worldvision was sold to Spelling Entertainment Group. Spelling Entertainment folded Worldvision's output into the Republic Pictures library (which at that time was a subsidiary of Spelling).
Finally in 1994, Viacom (parent company of Paramount) bought Republic/Spelling Entertainment. Therefore, Paramount/Viacom (via Republic) now owns the theatrical rights to Cujo while Trifecta Entertainment & Media (which handles the television side of the Republic theatrical holdings) syndicates for television, and Lionsgate (after consuming Artisan Entertainment, which originally distributed the Republic Pictures library on home video due to a deal with Viacom) distributes the movie on home video.
Universal owns home video rights for Cujo in the United Kingdom and other European countries while Paramount owns Region 4 home video rights.
