Who Made Who?: Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Maximum Overdrive (AKA 8 Days of Terror) (1986)
rating:***1/2
starring:  Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle and Laura Harrington

From the brilliant mind of Stephen King comes the greatest moron movie to this side of Carolina, U.S.A.!

When Stephen King snorted coke and decided to direct his first feature film, it must have been one heck of a ride for everyone to follow the direction of one of the best authors alive gone a tad flimsy. From miscalculated timing on explosives and blood packs, to the credibility of a film to follow a simple story, King vowed never again to direct after this little incident despite of recent talks of him taking interest in directing again is popping up lately. (kids, hide the coke) So until then, we, the fans of an estranged feller of a writer, are left with a timeless masterpiece of wreckage and dumb-foolery that's good enough on its own to entertain us.

And so, to begin, we must travel back in 1987...

After said comet tail went pass through Earth, it's radiation enters the atmosphere and causes a bizarre reaction to all of Earth's machines, giving them LIFE and hellbent on killing people for no apparent reason. From soda machines that shoots cans with skull-cracking strength to trucks that glows red beam lights, a handful of survivors fight for their lives inside a truck stop and live through the revolt of the machines.

Giving a new life in horror media, and smoothing its way through a generation of rock and roll music, Maximum Overdrive could have been anything but a long epic music video featuring rock songs of AC/DC and, so to speak, the comparison isn't far from it! It's loud, crazy, and above all, overdriven with nonsensical humor and violence.

The cheese in this film is phenomenal and I'm not saying that because of it's knee-deep lacking of credible multi-dimensional characters and talents to fill their shoes (which is actually a charming point of this movie, least to say), but the film itself is one strange bird; crazy enough we get living killer machines, slashing and crushing their way into rebellion in a catchy tune that sounds like a robo-version of Psycho's shower theme, but to include a truck stop with hidden arsenal and bunkers, random scenes of devastation, trucks that explodes before they hit the dirt and the grand muy machoism in the latter part, you have to be impaired to call this film Oscar worthy.

It's extremely stupid at all point, including its own continuity of the idea of a radiation causing machines to rise with life. (Why do we still have cars being driven by humans, radios that announces news, and a missile launched at outer space to destroy a space menace that literally came out of nowhere?) However, for those who're willing to see this film as a comical, disaster film, intentional or not, all this messed-up movie making and plotting could might as well be a the best reason to love this film and more.

Told true, the film sports a lot of nasty murders on the first half that pays tribute to slasher nasties of that decade with people getting killed by blow-dryers, toy cars, lawnmowers, ear buds attached to walkmans, ferry bridges, steamrollers (that one's my personal fave) and, of course, the occasional trucks. But by the time the second half comes, it suddenly became this acton hybrid where we get a shoot out spree between the humans and the machines, destroying/killing a fair number from both sides; looking into this, when it comes to plotting or making credibility the word for this film, it's a dragged work but an entertaining piece of drag for that one at least!

Based on a short story Trucks by King himself, which, by far, more simple than this pseudo-epic, but compared to the TV movie sorta-remake Trucks (2000), at least it brought a brighter munch for your popcorn as late Saturday night viewing B-flick. The goofs and mismatches provides more unintentional delight than nuisance, at least for my taste, which is all I could ask for in a deranged and impaired movie like this.

King, if you ever wanted to do something right and do it yourself, please, don't do drugs. I love you man, but them drugs does funny shit to yer brain. glad you gave up the stuff. But then again, if the result's is something this crazy fun, who knows? As for the rest of us, I'm feeling wigged whether I should recommend this tile or not. Surely it's not for everyone's taste, but I assure you, if you're a horror fan at general, you got to at least see this cult classic at least once.

bodycount:
1 male falls off a bridge, drowned
1 male drowned inside his truck after it pummels down from bridge
1 male crashes through windshield
Additional people presumably got killed in ferry bridge pile-up
1 male electrocuted in videogame
1 male gets a soda can shot and fracture his skull
2 boys hit on the back with shot soda cans
1 boy flattened by road-roller
1 male found killed
1 male seen killed
1 victim seen killed by headphone
1 male seen killed
1 female seen killed
1 dog seen choked on toy car
1 male seen with his head fried with headphones
1 female seen strangled by a hairdryer
1 male ran over by truck
1 male hit by a truck
1 male shot death with m60 mounted turret
3 males shot death with mounted turret
1 female shot death with m60 turret
1 male seen with her neck crushed in car window
1 male ran over by truck
total: 25+