Maximum Overdrive

Maximum Overdrive
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stephen King
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis Martha Schumacher
Screenplay by	Stephen King
Based on	Trucks by Stephen King
Starring	Emilio Estevez Pat Hingle Laura Harrington Yeardley Smith Frankie Faison Leon Rippy
Music by	AC/DC
Cinematography	Armando Nannuzzi
Editing by	Evan A. Lottman
Distributed by	De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Release date(s)	July 25, 1986 (1986-07-25) (U.S.)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$7,433,663

Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American action-horror-science fiction film written and directed by novelist Stephen King. The film starred Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington and Yeardley Smith. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King's short story, Trucks, which was included in King's first collection of short stories, Night Shift.

Maximum Overdrive is Stephen King's only directorial effort, though dozens of films have been based on King's novels. The film contained black humor elements and a generally camp tone, which contrasts with King's sombre subject matter in books. The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Director for Stephen King and Worst Actor for Emilio Estevez in 1987, but both lost against Prince for Under the Cherry Moon. King himself described the film as a "moron movie" and stated his intention to never direct again soon after.

In a 2002 interview with Tony Magistrale for the book Hollywood's Stephen King, King stated that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing." In spite of this, King stated in the same interview that he "learned a lot from the experience," and would "like to try directing again sometime."

In 1988, Maximum Overdrive was nominated for "Best Film" at The International Fantasy Film Awards.

The film has a mid-1980s rock and roll/hard rock soundtrack composed entirely by the group AC/DC, Stephen King's favorite band. AC/DC's album, Who Made Who, was released as the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack. It includes the best-selling singles "Who Made Who", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and "Hells Bells".

Plot

As the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, previously inanimate objects (ranging from vehicles to lawnmowers to an electric knife) start to show a murderous life of their own. In a pre-title scene, a man (cameoed by Stephen King, the film's writer and director) tries to withdraw money from an ATM, but it instead calls him an "asshole". Chaos soon begins as machines of all kinds come to life and begin assaulting humans; a drawbridge inexplicably raises during heavy traffic, resulting in multiple accidents, while at a Little League game, a vending machine kills one man by firing canned soda point-blank into his skull and a pilotless steamroller crushes one of the fleeing children.

The carnage spreads as humans and even pets are brutally killed by lawnmowers, electric hair dryers, pocket radios, and RC cars. At a roadside truck stop just outside Wilmington, North Carolina, a waitress is injured by an electric knife and arcade machines in the back room electrocute another victim. Employee and ex-convict Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez) begins to suspect something is wrong when suddenly marauding big rig trucks, led by a black semi-truck sporting a giant Green Goblin mask on its grille, run down two individuals and trap the rest of the civilians inside the truck stop's diner.

Robinson rallies the survivors; they use a cache of firearms and M72 LAW rockets stored in a bunker hidden under the diner and destroy many of the trucks. The trucks fight back, and at one point several human fatalities result from an M274 "Mule" firing its mounted M60 machine gun into the building. The vehicles then demand, via sending Morse Code signals through their car horns, that the humans pump their diesel for them in exchange for keeping them safe; the survivors soon realize they have become enslaved by their own machines. Robinson suggests they escape to a local island just off the coast, on which no vehicles or machines are permitted.

During a fueling operation, Robinson sneaks a grenade onto the Mule truck, destroying it, then leads the party out of the diner via sewer hatch to the main road. The survivors are pursued to docks by the Green Goblin truck, which manages to kill one more trucker while he is in the midst of looting corpses before Robinson destroys the truck once and for all. The survivors then sail off to safety; a title card epilogue explains that the machines are stopped with the destruction of a UFO by a Soviet "weather satellite" equipped with nuclear missiles and a laser cannon.

Cast

• Emilio Estevez as Bill Robinson
• Pat Hingle as Bubba Hendershot
• Laura Harrington as Brett
• Yeardley Smith as Connie
• Ellen McElduff as Wanda June
• Frankie Faison as Handy
• Leon Rippy as Brad
• Christopher Murney as Camp Loman
• John Short as Curtis
• J. C. Quinn as Duncan Keller
• Holter Graham as Deke Keller
• Barry Bell as Steve Gayton
• Patrick Miller as Joey
• J. Don Ferguson as Andy

Vehicles

A large array of various vehicles and electronic devices are featured in the film as antagonist characters, brought to life from the comet passing by Earth. A large number of semi-trailer trucks appear as a gang who invade the truck stop. They are led by a "Happy Toyz Co." White-Western Star 4800 truck which has the face of the Green Goblin from the Spider-Man franchise mounted on its front grill. Most of these trucks are destroyed by the end of the film.

Various other vehicles appear in brief or in supporting villainous roles. A military M274 Mule armed with an M60 machine gun, and a Caterpillar D7G Bulldozer appear in the truck stop to aide the trucks, the Mule gunning down several of the characters and later acting as a gunman towards the humans. A vending machine and a 1979 Rex 700 road roller attack a group of young baseball players, running one over and killing their coach with projectile canned drinks. An arcade game electrocutes a patron at the truck stop, and even a toy police car displays its maniacal side as seen when it has embedded itself in a dog's mouth and killed it. An ice cream truck makes several appearances in the film, but is destroyed at the end.

The Dixie Boy truck stop

The "Dixie Boy" truck stop was a full-scale set constructed ten miles west of Wilmington, North Carolina, on US Highway 74/76. The exact location was just outside of Leland, North Carolina. It was convincing enough that several semi drivers tried to stop in and eat there, and some tried to refuel. Eventually the producers had to put up several signs informing the truckers the set was fake and not a real truck stop. The producers also put announcements in local papers saying that the "Dixie Boy" was just a movie set.

After filming wrapped up (and the set had been partially demolished by explosives), some locals bought the set of the "Dixie Boy" and transformed it into a working truck stop. It was fully functional for three or four years, until it went bankrupt and was torn down sometime in the late 1980s. Some signposts for the Dixie Boy still remain, however.

Accidents on set

When filming the scene where the ice cream truck flips over, the stunt did not go according to plan and almost resulted in an accident. A telephone pole-size beam of wood was placed inside so it would flip end over end, but it only flipped once and slid on its roof, right into the camera. Gene Poole, dolly grip on the film, pulled the cameraman out of the way at the last second.

A second incident, this time leading to serious injury, occurred on July 31, 1985 while filming in a suburb of Wilmington, North Carolina. A radio-controlled lawnmower used in a scene went out of control and struck a block of wood used as a camera support, shooting out wood splinters which injured the director of photography, Armando Nannuzzi. As a result of this incident, Nannuzzi lost an eye. Nannuzzi sued Stephen King on February 18, 1987 for $18 million in damages due to unsafe working practices. The suit was settled out of court.

Reception

The film received negative reviews, earning a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 18%. In Leonard Maltin's annual publication "TV Movie Guide," the film is given a "BOMB" rating.

See also

• List of American films of 1986

External links

• Maximum Overdrive at the Internet Movie Database
• Maximum Overdrive at AllRovi
• Maximum Overdrive at Box Office Mojo
• Maximum Overdrive at Rotten Tomatoes
• Happy Toyz - an extensive fan site, named after the writing on the side of the villainous "Green Goblin truck". Features the script for the film, stills and various trivia.
• Green Goblin Head - Official Home of the Original Maximum Overdrive Green Goblin Head.
• Entry on RetroJunk.Com