IHR induction #48: "Maximum Overdrive" (1986, Stephen King)

Way back in the early '80s, when Dino De Laurentiis offered his personal services to Stephen King to produce his movies in a "quality" way, he had the best of intentions. Really, he did. It started off promising enough, with "The Dead Zone" as a bona fide classic and a minor box office success. Then came "Firestarter," a major box office failure...followed by "Cat's Eye," an even bigger box office failure...then "Silver Bullet"...and eventually the movie that we're talking about here today. The only movie ever to be directed by the man, the midth, the legend, Steve-O himself, and also one of only two feature films to have all of its music done by AC/DC. And really, it's the only one to have that distinction in my book, since that cash grab "Iron Man 2" soundtrack contained exactly TWO songs that were heard in the movie and a bunch of filler grabbed from their catalog.

To be fair, I've done by fair share of bitching about this movie in the past. And to be fair, it's far from the "masterpiece" that oh-so-handy movie poster informs us that it is. We'll be getting to that later. The important thing about this film, though, is that it holds a lot of nostalgic value, not only for yours truly but for a lot in my age bracket. It was played ad nauseum on the Turner networks in the early-to-mid-'90s, including a couple presentations on MonsterVision, and has become one of the semi-talked-about "cult classics" of my generation. Two, it's also the only movie to have its entire freakin' score done by AC/DC. A better ringing endorsement there cannot be.

* THE MOVIE *

Well, one of the very first things we see in this movie is the image above - Steve-O in a cameo role as a would-be ATM machine user, who promptly gets called an "asshole" by said machine followed by "Who Made Who" thumping on the soundtrack. Alright, we're off to a rocking start. Immediately afterward, we're treated to a pretty impressive sequence, as a bridge unexpectedly rises during the height of rush hour traffic, causing a multi-car pileup, death, destruction, and general chicanery. It should also be noted that this scene features Marla Maples getting killed by flying watermelons, which was oh-so-diligently pointed out to me by Joe Bob back in the day. All in all, quite the intro sequence, I must say.

Cut to the Dixie Boy truck stop, main location for the Romero-esque action that ensues. There's a whole cast of cutups here, most notably Bill Robinson (EMILIO!!! Estevez), an ex-con turned truck stop restaurant worker. Bill is at odds with his prickish boss Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), who for some reason refers to everyone else as "Bubba," despite the fact that this is his own name.

Well, it isn't long before this sweeping character development grinds to a halt and the machine-related incidents begins piling up. An electric carving knife takes on a life of its own and slices one of the Dixie Boy waitresses, a video game electrocutes a greedy patron, and a steamroller goes crazy on a Little League baseball field. It seems that machines have taken on a life of their own all across the globe, gaining not only life but a decidedly anti-human disposition. In the short story "Trucks" upon which this movie is based (located in the anthology collection "Night Shift" for anyone who wants to track down the source material), it's semi-trucks and semi-trucks alone that get the magical come-alive treatment, but this movie's decision to make it EVERY worldly electronic doodad was a good one, giving us all sorts of additional tension what with the soda machines, lawnmowers and other motorized devices running people down.

There you have it - "Maximum Overdrive," boiled down to its simplest forms, is essentially Night of the Living Dead with trucks as the main threat and a host of little threats, a tale of misplaced survivors paired up against an almost unbeatable force. Fairly basic premise, but it's pulled off with reasonable success. For starters, it helps that the movie has a pretty decent lead villain in the legendary Green Goblin-headed truck seen above. Pretty much everyone in my age bracket, at one point, thought that the "Happy Toyz" truck was badass personified. It also seems to have some sort of weird telepathic control over the other trucks, with its eyes glowing bright red whenever it wishes to communicate. It also serves as the primary negotiator/bringer of death to the humans in the film. ***** for "Maximum Overdrive" Green Goblin truck.

In addition to that, the music in this film works very well. As AFOREMENTIONED, not only the background songs but the freakin' SCORE are provided by AC/DC, and while this sounds like it would get old fast, it works really well. It helps when the band is as cool as AC/DC and you have universally loved songs like "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Hells Bells" to work with, but even the "pad" music is done very well, along with a "Psycho"-style guitar chord that will crop up in your mind at all the wrong moments and remind you of the scene where a hick gas station attendant gets an eyeful of gasoline from a vengeful pump.

That's what works in the film. Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't. Namely, the characters. Estevez was definitely game for the role of Bill Robinson as written, but there's rarely been a "hero character" less heroic than Bill. For most of the film, he does absolutely nothing, a trait that goes for most of the characters. We're given almost no reason to believe that the bad guys are beatable, until the script throws together some ragtag useless crap to "win" in the final ten minutes.

And the "love story" in this film...whoo boy. OK, kids, here's the summary: one of the survivor group is a hitchhiker named Brett (Laura Harrington), who rode into the Dixie Boy with a slimy Bible salesmen. Just because the script calls for it, Brett immediately takes a liking to Bill, and after a couple "flirting" scenes accompanied by what is really a very nice piece of background music by Angus & Malcolm, we get this ridiculous kissing scene that almost kills the movie halfway through. So big strike against the movie there.

But you know what? Forget all that. It goes without saying that, technically speaking, this is a pretty bad movie. As an experience, though, it's loads of fun. There's plenty of exploding trucks and decent kills to ensure that you won't be bored. Watching this flick in a crowd setting is always a treat (and I can speak from experience); there's plenty to laugh at, not the least of which is one of the characters screaming "WE MADE YOUUUUUU!!!!!!" at the circling gargantuans before getting shot in the chest by an Army gunner vehicle, Hingle's mystical weapons stash that he oh-so-conveniently keeps in his basement, the gas station assistant's flatulence during a toilet scene, and Lisa Simpson herself asking her new husband "ARE YOU DEEEEAAADDDD???" If you're looking for unintentional laughter, there are few movies better.

Which brings me to the whole point of this manifesto. Movies can be enjoyable in different ways. Sometimes, it's admittedly hard for me to enjoy critically acclaimed, heady, introspective films that are inherently challenging. Sometimes, I just want to be an idiot. If you're looking to turn your brain off, enjoy a fun roller coaster ride and go back to a time when it was perfectly acceptable to watch an unmanned steam roller flatten an unsuspecting CHILD (very hard to see this one getting by the MPAA today), this is one of the best fixes you can ask for. Especially since, as we speak, a remake is in talks (and this doesn't include the crappy 1997 TV movie "Trucks," which I'm well aware of), one that almost surely will be more professionally polished and nowhere near as much fun.