Friday, January 24, 2014

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

There are tons of classic movies based on works by Stephen King; Carrie, Cujo, The Shining, Christine, Pet Sematary, Firestarter, Creepshow, Children of the Corn, The Dead Zone, Salem's Lot, Silver Bullet, The Green Mile, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis, IT, Misery, and The Running Man, to name "a few". But until 1986 Stephen King was just a writer and every movie adaptation of his work to that point had been made by other people, this movie changed all that. Now imagine you were a producer in 1986 and Stephen King came into your office saying "I'm not happy with any film versions of my work so I'd like to direct my own film, adaptations of my work have been so successful, just think how good this one'll be! And it will be starring 80s young hunk Emilio Estevez, and it will have soundtrack done by my favorite band AC/DC!" Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Well you're right, it has all those elements but Stephen King is what he is, a writer, plus he tends to prefer the worse movie
versions of his work, (He hated Kubrick's version of the Shining and prefers the made for TV Tim Roth version). This is the first and only movie King himself has ever directed. This movie has become a cult classic primarily only because of how bad it is. It does have some things going for it, the cars are cool, the special effects and explosions are cool and stuff like that. The film's plot is very confusing as the movie progresses, at first all technology on earth goes crazy because earth is passing through the tail of a very unusual comet, but as the plot goes on it becomes clear the machines have minds of their own and aliens are somehow involved, taking away most of the story's believably. Everyday objects are running on their own and they're all deadly too, this is meant to instill a fear of the stuff we take for granted, and it partially works. The trucks are scary, an electric knife/saw goes nuts, and a man is fried by a pinball machine, but it reaches a point where it all becomes laughable. A man is killed by a soda vending machine shooting him in the crotch, seen here:
 There's a killer ice cream truck, and a man is laying dead on his front lawn having been run over by his own lawnmower, and the very first scene of the movie is Stephen King himself trying to get money from an ATM and instead of giving him the money the machine calls him an asshole repeatedly, seen below:

 Plus the film is just plain gross at times, there's a scene where Emilio Estevez is talking to a man on the toilet doing "his business" which is unfortunately audible. The music is great though, the explosions and stuff are cool, the main truck has the face of the Green Goblin from Spider Man on it, but that's about it for this one. I give it a 3.25/5. I do recommend the trailer though, Stephen King is hilariously crazy in it, seen below:

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