Movie Review #60: Maximum Overdrive (1985)

 

Boy oh boy where the bloody blue Jesus do I start with this movie? I'm going to go wild and say that this is my favorite Stephen King movie. This or The Running Man. They let Stephen King coked out of his mind write AND direct this insanity. I think this movie is incredibly entertaining and I shall let you in on everything great about this movie. I do think we should discuss the movies producer Dino De Laurentis. He got his start in his country of birth, Italy, in 1946. During the 1960s he started making American pictures. The first one of these you may have heard of is Barbarella in 1968. Then King Kong remake in 1976. Then the floodgates opened. Many Stephen King adaptations like The Dead Zone or Cat's Eye, the Conan The Barbarian films. Halloween II and Halloween III. Amityville II. What I'm saying is the dude was awesome and helped give us some cool as hell movies. He produced movies up until 2007, 3 years before his death at 91 years old. Let's give some cheer to Dino!

So the history of the short story this is based on is well this: It was first published in 1973 in a magazine named Colliers. I have no idea how famous this magazine is. I don't even know if it's still being produced. All I know about it is several of Stevie's first short stories got put in the magazine. Cool huh? Yep. You know what else is interesting about this short story is that I believe it's the ONLY story written by Stevie that has TWO movies based around it. Yes, in 1997 (I believe) the movie Trucks was put out. I remember liking it, but I'm pretty sure I saw it BEFORE I saw this movie and really there's no way to make this a better experience. It's amazing and if I ever meet Stevie I will give him a kiss for this beautiful film.

So what is this movie all about huh? Well, it involves a comet that turns all machines evil. I mean ALL machines. A walkman strangles someone. You only see the aftermath and this might be the only thing I'm pissed about because I WANT to see that insanity put on the screen. Don't you? Still this movie gives you all kinds of crazy deaths. A vending machine starts smashing a dude right in the face with coke cans. I also have to give Stephen King the award for BEST cameo ever. He goes to get money from an ATM and the ATM just starts calling him an asshole. The way he says asshole is the way I want too say it. I must practice so I can sound like a huge goofball. Oh I don't want to miss out by mentioning the great soundtrack by AC/DC who are a great band and smelly weirdos should know this (said smelly weirdo knows who he is) 

Now it's time to talk about the acting and I gotta say I love the cast here. First off we got Emilio Estevez who really needs to have a comeback to film acting. Stop directing tv and the occasional movie. The men and women who can't get over the 1980s and early 1990s want you back. I've always liked him going back to being a kid watching The Mighty Ducks films. The man gets into his characters and you easily believe he's a ex-con trying to get out alive vs some killer trucks or a jock in detention or a hockey coach. He really gets into these characters and I feel the fella. He was also pretty good in comedy like Charlie Sheen. He should be more popular than Charlie Sheen. I like some of the things he's done but hoo boy as a person he's got a whole hell of a lot of problems that he should really work on. I'm a very good therapist and blog poster.

Another great performance in this film is from Pat Hingle. He plays a huge and I mean huge asshole. Like he forces ex-cons to work longer hours for him without pay or he'll call the parole board on them. That kind of scummy fucker. He literally goes to a kid "YEAH YER DAD DIED FROM ONE OF DEM TRUCKS" and he's so shitty about it that the main lady slaps him. Of course this being a horror film the asshole gets his. You kinda wanted someone to kick his dead body after he died because he was THAT much of a prick. I must point this out when it comes to the acting because well it has to be known to everyone, even people who intend on never watching this movie because they listen to critics (you really never should. they are hoity toity dickholes who stink) or are hoity toity dickholes who only watch boring art films. Uh, so yeah there's one guy who literally acts so hard that when he threw the doors open to come out of he breaks the damn glass. Now that's acting! I wish I knew this guys name so I could call him out. He's one of the random people in the truck stop with some wild ass hair.

FINAL VERDICT: This movie is incredibly fun to watch. It's wild and crazy and it's got the second best soundtrack to any horror film (the best one is from Demons). It's got a lot of really good acting and it's fast paced and man just stop reading this terrible attempt at reviewing something and go watch it. Jerk.