Cujo is the story of a rabid Saint Bernard named Cujo
that goes on a killing spree. Most writers normally
would struggle to get enough material out of such a coarse
plot to fi ll up a short story, but somehow King managed
to produce a novel on this simple premise that was later
turned into a film.

Like many of King’s works, the actual threat or
“horror” plays a background role to the characters in the
story, which are richly fleshed out. The young family
in Cujo is certainly not the Brady Bunch; indeed, they
are in the midst of a significant family crisis, with the
couple barely speaking and the wife engaged in an affair
with another man. In addition to helping the audience
identify with the characters as real people, the family crisis
is skillfully used by King as a plot catalyst to isolate the
mother and son in the latter half of the movie.

This deteriorating state of affairs provides an
interesting parallel to Cujo’s own deteriorating physical
and mental health after being bitten by a rabid bat. This
provides an extra level of dramatic tension. The audience
knows that Cujo’s state is not likely to improve–is the
author also attempting to foreshadow a similar fate for
the family?

Cujo’s linear plot makes it successful. It starts
slowly, but early events make it evident that an explosive
climax is on the horizon. In one early scene, the boy of
the family that owns Cujo goes out looking for the dog
on a foggy night. Th e audience is shown Cujo’s hulking
form appear in the mist behind the boy, and it feels as if
at any moment an attack is imminent. Nothing happens, and
the terror subsides, but Cujo’s murderous potential is
masterfully hinted at before it becomes real several scenes
later.

In another scene designed to cause discomfort,
King probes at another fear, the fear of ingesting tainted
food and water, when the husband’s cereal company’s
new brand starts causing kids to get sick. The audience is
also let in on the wife’s affair well before the husband is,
providing another potential land mine that can erupt at
any moment.

The final confrontation in Cujo is brutal and
ferocious, but also very primal in a way that is easily
identified by the audience, if even on a subconscious level.
At its root, it is a mother protecting her young from the
predators of the wild. Although Cujo’s attack starts while
the mother and son are in the car, this modern contraption
is soon forgotten as it is smashed to bits during the epic
battle.

Wisely, King does not try to evoke sympathy for
the sick and feverish Cujo in the middle of this sequence.
Cujo comes at the mother and son again and again like
a freight train. His aggressiveness does not dissipate
over the hours and it is clear that Cujo has become a pure
killing machine, making any injuries suffered by the beast
tolerable; almost morally validated.

One other point of note is that Cujo contains a
very strong female character, as do other King big screen
adaptations such as Delores Claiborne, The Tommyknockers
and Misery.