Maximum Overdrive (Arrow Recommends)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Arrow Recommends is a column that has my sorry ass advise older movies to your royal asses. I will be flexible in terms of genres i.e. I will cover whatever the bleep I want. For now, it will be the way to keep my voice on the site.

PLOT: An alien charged comet circling earth’s orbit turns all of our machines (especially trucks) into “self-thinking”, murderous entities. Will the fine folks at “Dixie’s Truck Stop” survive the mechanical nightmare?

LOWDOWN: I’ve always loved STEPHEN KING’S 1986 MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (adapted from King’s 1973 short story Trucks which was also made into a TV movie in 1997) and today VESTRON is pimping out a deluxe Blu Ray of it that I can’t wait to get my paws on. The flick had a FU rock and roll attitude that I just don’t see in genre films today. The reviews weren’t kind upon its initial release but over time the film gained cult classic status, as it should!

 

Stephen King has since said this about his sole directing credit: 

“The problem with that film is that I was coked out of my mind all through its production, and I really didn’t know what I was doing.” 

Word has it that he was drinking like a fish too!

Here’s what the set translator Roberto Croci had to say about King:

“ I did know that he (King) was drunk. At 6 o’clock in the morning we’d have a roll call and he’s drinking beers. And by 8:30AM, he’s on his 10th beer.” 

So it all makes sense now! The smash em, f*ck em nature of the picture, had a lot to do with the fact that the writer/director himself was smashed and f*cked! AWESOME. With that parked in the back of my noggin, I rewatched the flick again and decided to pinpoint its most coke worthy moments:

-The first 30 minutes of the film were coked up overload in a FANTASTIC way. It was bold and over eager slaughter set pieces gunned out one after another. The crazy bridge scene, the baseball little league VS. soda machine bit, the neighborhood carnage sequence (right down to a psycho lawnmower going batshit). For me that first half hour was King JACKED up on rails and delivering the INSANE goods and then some! 

– A badass and aggressive score by AC/DC and AC/DC tunes peppered throughout = a stroke of coked up genius! LOVED IT!

-The first time that whiny/drunk waitress came out of the diner with her “We made you, don’t you understand bla bla bla” diatribe – was acceptable. But the second time, mucho yeyo was in the house! It made no sense other than setting her up to get whacked and the overacting on display was nothing short of spectacular. Damn. Just say no! 

-That dude that granted couldn’t see straight but somehow did not HEAR the truck coming at him – right in front of him. WTF?! Come on! So he just stood right there in front of the truck, covered his face and yelled and then got splat. Pure snort-snort cheese genius!  

-Lines like "You certainly make love like a hero." Or "All right you bastard, tell all of your friends the main line is open. I got the best shit on the east coast, practically uncut. You get that f*ckface?" Can only be a result of too much white powder in one’s system.

– A turkey knife attacks some poor dame. Nough said!

-Yes the face on the Happy Toyz truck was modeled after the Green Goblin villain from Spider Man. Why? RAILS!

-The only way I can justify the presence of Yeardley Smith’s (the voice of Lisa Simpson btw) forever YELPING character that for some f*cking inane reason keeps surviving the attacks over and over again is an abundant dose of Big C. If I hear the word “Curtis” one more time, I’ll… I’ll…. I’ll do a fat  line with King!

-Why does Laura Harrington dress like a dude for half the film, to then femme up for the second half? The Power of Estevez? My money is on: coke bender.

-Pat Hingle’s character’s name in the movie is Bubba Hendershot. But he calls everybody around him Bubba. Hence in his world, he is Bubba, yet he is so self-centered, that everybody else is Bubba too. That’s some deep shit. One that can only be created on a high dose of white powder. 

-Nothing says too many bumps than a truck that explodes for no freaking reason whatsoever other than the fact that it HAD to explode. Snap! 

-I’m not gonna be that asshole that’s gonna call out a film about killer machines on its lack of common sense. Like if aliens are able to control a rear view mirror on a truck or a machine gun mounted on a small vehicle – then why couldn’t they control everything else (like doorknobs or the guns our heroes had). But hey, like I said, I won’t be that asshole. So forget what I just spat and just think: cocaine. 

-The amount of opportunities our heroes had to to escape were countless. Especially during the “lets gas the trucks” sequence. Why they waited so damn long to give it a shot is beyond me. I have a theory though, you guessed it: blow. 

– Is it me or did the Goblin truck check out Emilio Estevez's tight ass with its side mirror? Maybe it's just me.

RANDOM THOUGHT: I just picked this up, Maximum Overdrive has the same basic story structure as King’s The Mist. Think about it. Mind blown! 

Straight up I can go on and on about the coked up B goodness of this badboy but I think you get the picture. I always loved this film, but watching it again knowing that Mr. King was high off his ass while making it gave me an whole new perspective on it. It’s loud, violent as f*ck, earratic, filled to the brim with explosion, out of line scenarios and gore. Its also dumb as f*ck (King himself has called it “A moron movie”!).

Ever wanted to know what would happen if you gave a kid an ounce of blow, a mammoth collection of toy trucks and mucho firecrackers to play with? Maximum Overdrive. And we all are all better genre fans for its existence.

PS: King looks so coked up in the trailer too. LOL! DAMNNNNNNN! God bless the 80's…