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

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!


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+
June 19th is my birthday. I feel honoured.
ReplyDeleteI like this movie even though it makes no sense whatsoever - why were cars not affected by everything else from battery-knives and lawnmowers to planes and trucks is?
But the kid being squashed by the steamroller is horrible, one of the few horror film scenes that genuinely weirded me out when I first saw it.
the steam roller scene actually got me laughing the first time i saw it. I do wonder if they're still plans on showing that uncut, I do would like to see what made Mr. Romero lose his lunch that day.
DeleteK Man! Now you're talking! This one was filmed right here in Wilmington NC where I live! I got here about 6 years too late to see it filmed, but I did get to see the Green Goblin truck hood laying discarded out behind the studio - I'm planning some posts this year about my adventures around the film industry - I'll definitely write my visit to the Goblin truck head up and put in the picture I took!
ReplyDeleteWhat i do want to see is Dixie Boy! If I have a truck, I'll drive by that stop anytime!
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