Cujo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. (Discuss)
This article is about the Stephen King novel and the subsequent film. For NHL goalie, see Curtis Joseph. For the musician, see Amon Tobin.
Cujo
Author Stephen King
Country USA
Language English
Genre(s) Horror
Publisher Viking Press
Released 1981
Media Type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 320 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-451-16135-1
Cujo

The Theatrical Poster for Cujo
Directed by Lewis Teague
Produced by Daniel H. Blatt
Robert Singer
Neil A. Machlis (associate producer)
Written by Stephen King (novel)
Don Carlos Dunaway
Lauren Currier
Starring Dee Wallace Stone
Danny Pintauro
Daniel Hugh Kelly
Christopher Stone
Music by Charles Bernstein
Cinematography Jan de Bont
Editing by Neil Travis
Release date(s) August 12, 1983
Running time 91 min
Country USA
Language English
Budget $5,000,000
IMDb profile

Cujo is a horror novel by Stephen King, published by Viking in 1981. The book tells the story of the middle-class Trenton family and rural Camber clan in Castle Rock, Maine. Marital and financial difficulties of the mundane sort plague disgraced advertising man Vic Trenton and his adulterous wife Donna. Their domestic problems are dwarfed by the mortal danger when Donna and her four-year-old son Tad are terrorized by a rabid St. Bernard named Cujo.

The novel was adapted into the 1983 film Cujo, directed by Lewis Teague from a screenplay by Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier.

Due to the popularity of King's novel and the subsequent film adaptation, the name of "Cujo" has since entered the realm of popular culture as a generic term or sarcastic insult in reference to a psychotic, violent, or imbalanced dog.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel is set almost entirely in the fictitious town of Castle Rock, Maine. It begins with a reference to Frank Dodd, the Castle Rock deputy sheriff whose murder spree was the central episode in the first half of The Dead Zone. In fact, there is some hinting to the question of whether or not Cujo is possessed by Dodd and whether or not Dodd is haunting the Trenton house (Tad is scared by a monster in his closet and the words put up on the wall by his father is the only way he sleeps with ease). Except for these vague hints, there are no supernatural elements in the book and it is mainly a thriller.

The most unusual stylistic element of the narrative is that it occasionally switches to the perspective of the canine title character. Like Kojak from The Stand, Cujo sees humans as extraordinary, nearly divine figures (for example, all adult males are referenced as "THE MAN"). Also noteworthy is that, atypically for King's early work, there is an exploration of how marriages work or don't; this is done through the parallelism of the middle-class Trentons and the blue-collar Cambers.

Cujo belongs to the Cambers, a family living outside of Castle Rock where father Joe does mechanic work. While hunting in the fields around the Cambers' house, Cujo is bitten by a bat infected with rabies. While Cujo begins to succumb to the disease, Joe's son and wife leave on a trip to visit relatives. Soon after Cujo loses control, the dog attacks and kills the Cambers' neighbor, Gary Pervier. Joe arrives in order to pick up Gary for their own vacation while his wife is away and finds Gary dead. Before he is able to call the police, Cujo kills him as well.

The Trentons -- Vic, Donna, and four-year-old Tad -- are having problems of their own as Vic discovers that his wife has been cheating on him. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's business is failing, and he is forced to leave on a business trip to Boston and New York. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. However, the car breaks down when they reach the farm. Thus, with no one at the Camber home except for Cujo, a three day struggle begins to outlast the dog in a siege of the stalled car. Hunger, thirst, and fantasies of escape methods conspire to tease Donnna and Tad during the hottest summer in Castle Rock history. The sheriff of Castle Rock, George Bannerman, arrives fortuitously and is himself killed by the dog. In the end, Vic, worried that his wife has not answered the phone at home, returns to Castle Rock and figures out where they are. Yet by the time he gets there, Donna has killed Cujo in a gory showdown and Tad has died of dehydration (in the movie, Tad survives as producers felt that the death of a child would be too horrifying).

[edit] Trivia

  • The dog that played Cujo in the movie was reported to be so friendly, they had trouble with him wagging his tail when he was supposed to be mauling someone to death. To overcome this, the crew had to tie his tail down. However, you can spot "Cujo" still happily wagging away when he corners one of the characters.
  • When the dog playing Cujo is 'attacking' the car windows, he is actually trying to find his favorite ball.
  • In his book On Writing, King has said he does not really remember writing the book as he was in a drug-induced stupor for the duration of its authorship.
  • This story marks the first appearance (in terms of publication order) of Aunt Evvie Chalmers, who is also a minor character in The Body and who plays a significant role (in flashbacks) in Needful Things.
  • In the Stephen King novel, Pet Sematary, Jud Crandall talks about a "Saint Bernard down south went rabid and killed four people."
  • Cujo is referenced to in "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut", a short story in the book Skeleton Crew, also by Stephen King.
  • Cujo is also mentioned in the seventh and final volume of King's Dark Tower series, where Roland Deschain states the name means "sweet one" in the High Speech.

[edit] ISBN

[edit] External link


Stephen King
Bibliography
Novels: Carrie (1974) • ’Salem's Lot (1975) • Rage (as Richard Bachman) (1977) • The Shining (1977) • Night Shift (stories) (1978) • The Stand (1978) • The Dead Zone (1979) • The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman) (1979) • Firestarter (1980) • Cujo (1981) • Roadwork (as Richard Bachman) (1981) • The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982) • Different Seasons (novellas) (1982) • The Running Man (as Richard Bachman) (1982) • Christine (1983) • Pet Sematary (1983) • Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) • The Talisman (written with Peter Straub) (1984) • Thinner (as Richard Bachman) (1984) • Skeleton Crew (stories) (1985) • The Bachman Books (novel collection) (1985) • It (1986) • The Eyes of the Dragon (1987) • Misery (1987) • The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987) • The Tommyknockers (1988) • Dark Visions (cowritten with George R. R. Martin and Dan Simmons) (1988) • The Dark Half (1989) • Dolan's Cadillac (1989) • My Pretty Pony (1989) • The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition (1990) • Four Past Midnight (stories) (1990) • Needful Things (1990) • The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991) • Gerald's Game (1992) • Dolores Claiborne (1993) • Nightmares & Dreamscapes (stories) (1993) • Insomnia (1994) • Rose Madder (1995) • Umney's Last Case (1995) • The Green Mile (1996) • Desperation (1996) • The Regulators (as Richard Bachman) (1996) • Six Stories (stories) (1997) • The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997) • Bag of Bones (1998) • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) • The New Lieutenant's Rap (1999) • Hearts in Atlantis (1999) • Dreamcatcher (2001) • Black House (sequel to The Talisman; written with Peter Straub) (2001) • From a Buick 8 (2002) • Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (stories) (2002) • The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (revised edition) (2003) • The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) • The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004) • The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004) • The Colorado Kid (2005)
Cell (2006) • Lisey's Story (2006)
Non-fiction: • Danse Macabre (1981) • 1988 Nightmares in the Sky (1988) • 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) • 2005 Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (cowritten with Stewart O'Nan) (2005)
Original ebooks: Riding the Bullet (2000) • The Plant: Book 1-Zenith Rising (2000)
Audio Recordings
Audiobooks: L.T.'s Theory of Pets • Blood and Smoke (2000) • Stationary Bike (2006)
This box: view • talk • edit
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/u/j/Cujo.html"