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Maximum Overdrive

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Maximum Overdrive
Theatrical release poster
Directed byStephen King
Screenplay byStephen King
Produced byMartha Schumacher
Starring
CinematographyArmando Nannuzzi
Edited byEvan A. Lottman
Music byAC/DC
Distributed byDe Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Release date
  • July 25, 1986 (1986-07-25)
Running time
97 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$9 million[2]
Box office$7.4 million[3]

Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by Stephen King.[4] The film stars Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, and a young 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 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 campy tone, which contrasts with King's sombre subject matter in books. The film has a mid-1980s hard rock soundtrack composed entirely by the group AC/DC, 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".

The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Director for King and Worst Actor for Estevez in 1987, but both lost against Prince for Under the Cherry Moon. In 1988, Maximum Overdrive was nominated for "Best Film" at the International Fantasy Film Awards.[5] King himself described the film as a "moron movie" and stated his intention to never direct again soon after.[6] 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". King considers the film a learning experience.[7]

Plot

As the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, previously inanimate objects (ranging from weapons to electric signs to electronics to vehicles to lawnmowers to an electric knife) start to show a murderous life of their own. In a pre-title scene, a man (King in a cameo) tries to withdraw money from an ATM, but it instead calls him an "asshole", and he whines to his wife (King's real life wife Tabitha). 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, most notably the black AC/DC van and a watermelon truck; while at a Little League game, a vending machine kills the coach by firing canned soda point-blank into his groin and then to his skull; a driverless steamroller flattens one of the fleeing children.

The carnage spreads as humans and even pets are brutally killed by lawnmowers, chainsaws, 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 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 post-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 vehicle, 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 a ring from a female corpse in a car before Robinson destroys the truck once and for all with a direct hit from an M72 LAW rocket shot. The survivors then sail off to safety; a title card epilogue explains that two days after the machine's rampage, A UFO was destroyed by a Soviet "weather satellite" equipped with class IV nuclear missiles and a laser cannon.

Cast

Production

The film was the first to be made by Embassy Pictures after it had been bought by Dino de Laurentiis.[2] 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".[7]

"Dixie Boy" truck stop

The Dixie Boy truck stop was a full-scale set constructed ten miles west of Wilmington, North Carolina, on U.S. Route 74/76. The exact location was in Leland, North Carolina. It was convincing enough that several semi-truck drivers tried to stop in and eat there; some even 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 newspapers saying that the Dixie Boy was just a movie set.

After filming wrapped, 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 sign posts for the Dixie Boy still exist.

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, and 17 others, on February 18, 1987 for $18 million in damages due to unsafe working practices.[8] The suit was settled out of court.

Reception

Maximum Ovedrive received overwhelmingly negative reviews, earning a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 17%. In Leonard Maltin's annual publication TV Movie Guide, the film is given a "BOMB" rating. Two Golden Raspberry Award nominations were given out, to Emilio Estevez for Worst Actor and Stephen King for Worst Director.

John Clute and Peter Nichols[9] have offered a modest reappraisal of Maximum Overdrive, admitting the film's many flaws but arguing that several scenes display enough visual panache to suggest that King was not entirely without talent as a director.

In a recent[when?] interview discussing the television adaptation of Under the Dome, King admitted that Maximum Overdrive was the worst adaptation of his work.

An episode of The Simpsons, "Maximum Homerdrive", is a reference to the film, which was Yeardley Smith's previous screen role prior to her joining the voice-acting cast of the series a year later.[citation needed]

Legacy

About a year after the movie was released the Green Goblin truck was taken to Silent Rick's Towing and Salvage in Wilmington, NC. The jaw, lower teeth, tongue and tops of the ears were gone and what was left was burnt severely. John Allison of Wilmington, NC saw it there and purchased it. He later had to sell it and Tim Shockey of Piketon, Ohio purchased it February 19, 1987. Tim displayed it in his video store, Uncle Jim's Videoland in Waverly, Ohio for several years till he sold the business. He moved it to his back yard for about 20 years. It was then moved into his garage and he started restoring it in 2011. Tim spent 2 years, nights and weekends restoring the head. March 16, 2013. Tim travels across the USA and Canada taking it to horror & comic cons.

See also

References

  1. ^ "MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (18)". Recorded Releasing. British Board of Film Classification. September 3, 1987. Retrieved July 24, 2014.
  2. ^ a b DE LAURENTIIS REJOINS THE RANKS--AT EMBASSY: DE LAURENTIIS: EMBASSY Friendly, David T. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] November 16, 1985: e1.
  3. ^ "Maximum Overdrive (1986)". Box Office Mojo. July 5, 1988. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
  4. ^ Beday, Jeremy. "Maximum Overdrive (1986)". Allmovie. All Media Guide.
  5. ^ Maximum Overdrive Awards page at the IMDb
  6. ^ Thomas, Bob (July 23, 1986). "'Selling' his movie is a new chore for author Stephen King". Associated Press. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
  7. ^ a b Magistrale, Tony (November 22, 2003). Hollywood's Stephen King. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-312-29321-5. Retrieved September 9, 2014.
  8. ^ "STEPHEN KING SUED OVER INJURY". The Washington Post. February 21, 1987. Retrieved November 7, 2015. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ John Clute and Peter Nichols. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York, St. Martin's Griffin, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09618-6.
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