But that’s not to say the first half of the movie is time killer by any means. The wonderful thing about King’s work is that he works in causality. The layers of human behavior, the frailty of his characters and the effect those frailties have on the broader canvas allow for sympathy and universal understanding. There are primal forces at work in Cujo: boredom in relationships; fear of the unknown; a desire to protect your loved ones from greater threats (whether those threats are your career, a foaming at the mouth canine or even your own discontent).

If anything, Cujo has to be recommended just to watch Dee Wallace’s journey from start to finish. At most, I’m drawn to the horror genre when vulnerable, resourceful, relatable characters face inward and outward darkness, finding some measure of themselves that fights to walk in the sun. Wallace’s character is no naive, Faberge egg like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. She’s no narcissistic teen from a Friday the 13th movie. She’s complex, contradictory, unsatisfied. Watching her thrown in a situation where her own survival is secondary to her son’s is galvanizing. There’s a lot of satisfaction as a parent watching her, bruised and bleeding, pick up a baseball bat, turn to the dog, and scream “Come On!”