Synth Music & Sexy Cars: How Drive is Like Christine

Yes, I'm going to compare the sexy, blood-spattered Drive about an (insurmountably hot) carman in a heist gone wrong to Christine, John Carpenter's film adaptation of Stephen King's novel about a killer car.

Christine summary: a 1958 Plymouth Fury who entrances young males who want to own her. Once they have her they don't want anything else and eventually it leads to their ruin. Essentially they become angry, jealous, paranoid alcoholics. Christine kills for them - they kill for her. It's murdertastic.

It's not just the car-love, the violence, or the many shots of simply driving around and long, awkward pauses in conversation - the music in Drive is reminiscent of Christine. I'm not talking about when Christine plays "Bony Moronie," I'm referring to her score, the synth-charged moments when she's up to no good. I find myself at a loss because it seems most people are either too old to see Drive in the theater or too young to have seen Christine (1984). So let me offer up this example scene "The Death of Moochie"

Now compare that to College's A Real Hero - kind of the anthem of Drive.

A lot of the electro-pop in Drive is an 80s throwback. You can see their roots from across the room. In fact, Kavinsky's Nightcall single has (essentially) Terminator on the cover, and his previous album called 1986 featured the same illustration. And they know they tinker in the 80s horror genre, I mean, listen to Chromatics "Killing Spree" (and this is the non-gore video):

Word of advice, the Drive soundtrack is mostly made up of ambient music by Cliff Martinez, stuff that I could hear and never even remember from the film. What you want it the first few tracks which iTunes, Amazon, nobody wants to sell the separately because they know no one wants Cliff Martinez. Here's the solution, what you're looking for is available already on other albums. Look for this:

College (featuring Electric Youth) - A Real Hero EP
Desire - II "Under Your Spell" (Don't Call is also a really good song on this album)
Kavinsky - Nightcall Anniversary Edition
Chromatics - Night Drive "Tick of the Clock"(Think about buying "Night Drive" or "Running Up that Hill" from this album instead)

I could take it further and compare Arnie to Ryan Gosling, but I'll spare him the embarrassment since his bicep equals one whole Keith Gordon. Suffice to say, their crazy-eyes make hearts flutter - and they still look hot covered in blood.

I'll leave you with this long scene from Christine. And, yeah, the guy in the passenger seat is the guy from he beginning of Ghostbusters while Bill Murray is testing for ESP, "Well, I didn't know you were gonna be giving me electric shocks!"

Sarah Rae is a freelance writer and fiction editor for Prick of the Spindle. She lives and writes in Brooklyn. www.sarahrae.net