Film Maximum Overdrive

[Cristy Borovetz]

When a comet passes close to the earth, machines all over the world come alive and go on homicidal rampages. A group of people at a desolate truck stop are held hostage by a gang of homicidal 18-wheelers. The frightened people set out to defeat the killer machines ... or be killed by them.

Emilio Estevez Pat Hingle Laura Harrington Yeardley Smith John Short Ellen McElduff J.C. Quinn Christopher Murney Holter Graham Frankie Faison Pat Miller Jack Canon Barry Bell John Brasington J. Don Ferguson Leon Rippy Robert Gooden R. Pickett Bugg Giancarlo Esposito Martin Tucker Marla Maples Ned Austin Richard Chapman Jr. Bob Gunter a.k.a Bob Sherry Gunter Bill Huggins Sherry Chapman a.k.a bob gunter original bob gunter a.k.a Robert Christoffer Gunter Stephen King

Glenn Randall Jr. Phil Adams Christine Anne Baur Robin Grathwol Gene Hartline Kent Hays Julius LeFlore Denver Mattson Bernie Pock Bruce Moriarty Gary McLarty Edgard Mourino Dick Langdon Tommy J. Huff

If this is supposed to be a horror film, it is an abject failure. It's not ever scary, even for a second. But if it's supposed to be a comedy, then it is a masterpiece, sort of like a parody of King's THE MIST by King himself, about people tortured by trucks (who act like drunken belligerent assholes) rather than giant bugs. Highlights include the scene where a soda machine comes to life and shoots cans at a man's genitals at high-speed, and the scene where the gas station attendant farts a lot. I was also a fan of the part where one of the characters says the phrase "maximum overdrive."

I can imagine his family concerned for him during all his work. Reading his books, like The Shining, which tackles alcoholism. But then watching Maximum Overdrive, and as soon as the credits roll, saying "I think it's time."

It's basically Night of the Living Dead but with trucks instead of zombies. About as scary as you'd imagine. Giving it an extra half star because there were a few really funny kills. Highlights include: a little league team being run over with a steamroller after their coach gets his head caved in by a soda machine firing cans at him, several splatters across the grills of various Mack trucks, and an assortment of gawping, truck stop rubes and grotesques getting raked with machine gun fire.

Tremors with trucks! The Mist with machines! Stephen King with coke! You can't convince me the world is a worse place with Maximum Overdrive in it. You can't tell me a film where Gordon Bombay calls a tractor-trailer with a goblin head a "fuck face" has no merit. We live in a beautiful world filled with beautiful ideas.

Here it is, Friday night. I'm sitting in my basement in a blue flannel shirt drinking a Diet Coke and thinking about how wasted Stephen Edwin King must have been to birth this lumbering piece of Sasquatch feces into the world. "A film by Stephen King." Hilarious, rad, dumb, hideous and groovy. What a one and done. If this was the only film I had ever made, I honestly could live with that.

To be honest, the premise could be made into a more engaging and entertaining film, for all the right reasons. And in part, at the end of the film when the explosions and gunfire begin, the film shows a lot of that potential. The jokes rarely worked, yet I occasionally found myself laughing at some of them and the ridiculous situations our protagonists are in, or the performances which for the most part (although Yeardley Smith's whiny dubbing was rather irritating) capture the B-movie, shlocky vibe that the film aims for.

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