Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Stephen King has been a part of my life for a long time. I wouldn’t call myself a die-hard fan, by any stretch of the imagination. I haven’t read every book he has written. I haven’t even read half of them. And I definitely haven’t seen all the movies and television shows based on his work. I’ve seen and read a bunch of his work, however, and it has had an impact on the person that I am.

I was born in 1990, which wasn’t anywhere near the start of Stephen King’s career. His first novel, Carrie, had been released sixteen years before I was born. He was sending out short stories to different publications well before that. What I would say, however, is that the 1990s were the peak of Stephen King fever. Enough people had discovered his books and were reading them that he was a staple in almost any home. Numerous movies had been based on his writing, leading to his domination at the box office. Okay, maybe not domination numbers-wise, but domination in terms of saturation. Everyone was making Stephen King movies.

The Shawshank Redemption came out when I was four years old. It was probably the first movie I saw that was based on Stephen King’s writing, though I never would have known that at the time. I was four, and the little I knew of Stephen King was that he wrote those scary books on the shelves. I didn’t know he wrote anything that wasn’t scary. It wasn’t something I could connect the dots with. I should note that I absolutely didn’t see The Shawshank Redemption right when it came out. My parents barely went to the theater and were not going to take a four-year-old me to watch a prison drama. It was probably just something on television like a year later that they turned on to watch and I ended up sitting down and watching it with them. Actually, I might have seen The Dead Zone before that. It was filmed around here, and I know I saw it as a kid. That might have been first. Anyway…

It would be a couple more years before I dove into a Stephen King book. The first one I cracked open was The Shining. It would have been sometime in, maybe, grade 7 or 8. If I was even that old. I had seen the movie before reading the book and, like I’m prone to do, wanted to see how the book compared to what I had seen. It opened a whole new reading world for me. I was in on the Stephen King and I would keep reading his stuff for the rest of my life.

Throughout high school, I worked as a parking lot attendant at a hotel. There was a lot of downtime while I worked there. I would park a car, then there would be like twenty minutes where I had nothing to do. I would bring a book to my little booth and read while I was waiting for more cars to come through. Many times, the books I chose to read were Stephen King novels. I read Different Seasons, It, and The Stand while working there, for sure. I might have read The Dead Zone and Christine during that time, as well. I was diving into his work and enjoying it a lot.

My next job was in the local tourist industry, which thrived in the summer and slowed down through the winter. Working the winter months without much business once again meant a lot of downtime. With that downtime came reading. Dreamcatcher, Under the Dome, 11/22/63, Carrie, and Skeleton Crew were some of the books I read during that time. There were other books that weren’t Stephen King, but they’re not the focus of this post.

I’ve also read Stephen King stuff outside of downtime at work. I don’t only read at work. That ain’t me. I’ve read things like Cujo, ‘Salem’s Lot, Rage, Night Shift, The Long Walk, Pet Sematary, Misery, Cell, and the first two Dark Tower novels. It was a mixture of older and newer writing, most of which I enjoyed. I learned the tropes of his writing. I found out that he wasn’t the best at writing endings. I also discovered a whole lot of movies and television shows based on his writing.

See, I was born into the peak of Stephen King adaptations. I may have said that already. The Shawshank Redemption came out when I was four and I probably saw it when I was five. I know I’ve said that already. But the late 80s and early 90s was a time when there were a hell of a lot of Stephen King adaptations coming out. There were movies. There were television series. And there were the in between, the event miniseries. Everyone was going crazy for King.

I saw the 1990 adaptation of It when I was a child. You know, the one where Tim Curry played an evil clown named Pennywise. The source material was re-adapted a few years ago as a successful pair of movies. Anyway, the original miniseries was part of my childhood. I would bring it into my teenage years and adulthood when I bought it on DVD and watched it a few more times. When I was in high school, I checked out the 1994 miniseries for The Stand, which had Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, and Rob Lowe. I quite enjoyed that one, though I’ve only seen it the one time. They’ve since remade that, too.

The Langoliers was a two-part miniseries from 1995 I saw once and remember nothing about. The Tommyknockers was a two-parter from 1993 that I’ve never seen. Golden Years was some one season show from 1991 that I never heard of until looking up some of the miniseries for this post. There was the 1997 miniseries remake of The Shining meant to please King, who didn’t like the Kubrick movie. Closing out the decade was Storm of the Century in 1999, a miniseries written by King without a novel to base it on. The 1990s were a huge decade for Stephen King miniseries. The miniseries have recently been making a comeback, too.

Movies based on Stephen King works were also huge, though I’d say the peak of those was in the 1980s, rather than the 1990s. That could mostly be attributed to the popularity, rather than the abundance. The Shining came out in 1980. Christine was from 1983. The Dead Zone was also from 1983. Firestarter hit theaters in 1984. So did Children of the Corn. Rob Reiner had the one-two punch of Stand by Me in 1986 and Misery in 1990. Cujo came out in 1983 and Pet Sematary in 1989. Plus there were two Creepshow movies and a couple other, lesser flicks in that decade. The 1980s were all about the popularity of Stephen King.

One of the most notable movies of that decade, and one I didn’t bring up until now, was Maximum Overdrive. It was Stephen King’s directorial debut and remains the only film he has directed. The reasons why seem obvious. During the making of Maximum Overdrive, Stephen King was regularly using cocaine. His cocaine fueled brain influenced the structure of the movie, from the dialogue to the editing to the performances. Everything was this hyperactive insanity that never quite worked, yet was highly entertaining in a campy way.

The story of Maximum Overdrive was pretty simple. Machines came to life and attacked humans. There were a bunch of people trapped in a truck stop while a bunch of transport trucks circled outside. If they attempted to leave, the unmanned trucks would try to run them down. Bill (Emilio Estevez) was an ex-con hired by Hendershot (Pat Hingle) to cook and clean. Brett (Laura Harrington) was a hitchhiker who had caught a ride with the handsy bible salesman, Camp Loman (Christopher Murney). Curtis (John Short) and Connie (Yeardley Smith) were two newlyweds who found the truck stop while trying to avoid the machines and became trapped by the machines they were trying to avoid. All these people and more came together to fight back against the machines and regain their freedom.

Maximum Overdrive began with insanity in the opening scene. Stephen King came onto screen as some normal guy in some North Carolina (I think) town. He tried to use an ATM, but the text on the ATM screen called him an asshole. Things then cut to a bascule bridge, or opening bridge. Traffic was crossing the bridge when the mechanisms decided to open. It led to a bunch of destruction and death that wasn’t frightening in any way. Perhaps it was the AC/DC track backing the scene. I’d say it was the editing, which was a major issue with the movie.

There could have been a lot done in the editing room of Maximum Overdrive to improve the tone, pacing, and overall quality of the movie. I’m not a professional editor. I’m not going to claim to know everything about it. But I went through three years of film school, which included editing. I’ve done a few small film jobs since then, some of which included editing. I know enough about the process that I can say there were a lot of spots in Maximum Overdrive where the editing was too relaxed. That was mostly within the montages, which went on far too long.

A good example of this relaxed editing was when Deke (Holter Graham) rode his bike through his neighbourhood. It was the scene where the audience was shown the true destruction machines had caused in the world. It was shot after shot after shot of dead bodies and bloody machines. After a while, it felt redundant. It was pretty much a full AC/DC song’s worth of screentime spent showing people who had already been killed by machines. Deke wasn’t stumbling upon them while searching for someone or something. The people weren’t dying on screen. There was no suspense to it. He rode his bike down an empty street seeing the aftermath at each of the houses. Had it been quicker cut with some suspenseful editing, the scene could have played much better than it did.

The other major issue was the unrealized tone of Maximum Overdrive. The story was clearly a horror story. The machines of the world came to life and were out for human blood. A bunch of people were trapped in a truck stop while the machines loomed outside. It was reminiscent of Stephen King’s novella The Mist and the eventual movie adaptation that Frank Darabont would direct. The issue was that King decided to direct Maximum Overdrive as if it wasn’t a horror story. He positioned it as a sort of action movie, instead. The backing rock music of AC/DC, the tough attitudes of the characters, the explosions and car chases… It all felt like an 80s action movie, albeit a not-so-well put together one. They went up against a machine gun on a cart, at one point. The weird tonal shift between the writing and the directing placed the movie into a weird sort of in-between world where it never worked as either.

Stephen King would never direct, following the release of Maximum Overdrive. He knows it wasn’t great. He has stated that he was so coked out of his mind that he didn’t know what he was doing. He has also told people to watch Maximum Overdrive when they ask why he hasn’t directed anything since. Though I agree that it’s not good, that a lot of things could have been done differently, and that Stephen King probably shouldn’t direct again, I will say that the movie is still watchable. I keep going back to it. I’ve seen it a few times now, and I don’t regret watching it. It’s entertaining, at least.

Even though Stephen King only directed one movie, movies and television shows based on what he wrote have continued to be released. Just this past year, a remake of The Stand came out. I haven’t seen that yet, but probably will soon enough. There was also that recent Castle Rock show that, although not based on any specific Stephen King novel or short story, incorporated elements from throughout his bibliography. And there was the Under the Dome series, the 11/22/63 miniseries, In the Tall Grass, Gerald’s Game, and 1922 on Netflix, among a bunch of other stuff. The love for Stephen King’s work hasn’t subsided. Though the peak may have been around the time I was born, there may be another peak happening right now.

One last little bit of Stephen King stuff that I want to touch upon is the dollar baby thing that he has been doing for a long time. There are a handful of stories that Stephen King has made available for students, aspiring filmmakers, and theatre producers if they want to adapt them. They spend a dollar for the rights. King’s people grant the rights to produce an adaptation, though the filmmakers do not retain the rights to the story. They also can’t use King’s name in the title. I don’t know all the details and might have some slight things wrong in regards to the rights. Anyway, it’s King’s way of helping aspiring filmmakers hone their craft. The dollar baby program led to Frank Darabont directing The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, so it gets a thumbs up from me. Good job, Mr. King and Mr. Darabont.

I was born in 1990, during what I consider to be peak Stephen King time. He was regularly releasing books that people were eating up. His writing was frequently being adapted into movies and miniseries. His name was synonymous with entertainment, particularly of the horror persuasion. I was born into a world where Stephen was King and he ended up influencing the things I read and watched, simply by being what I read and watched. The world would be much different without his influence.

Now let’s get to a few notes:

• Maximum Overdrive wasn’t the first Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Yeardley Smith. She was also in New Year’s Eve (week 57) and Jingle All the Way (week 160).
• Marla Maples was in A Nanny for Christmas (week 3) and Maximum Overdrive.
• Giancarlo Esposito popped up in Maximum Overdrive for a bit. He was also in Alex Cross (week 12).
• Maximum Overdrive saw Jock Brandis return to Sunday “Bad” Movies after first appearing in Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (week 118).
• Pat Hingle was one of the main actors in Maximum Overdrive. He could also be seen in Batman & Robin (week 138).
• Frankie Faison was in both Maximum Overdrive and The Stupids (week 188).
• Julius LeFlore returned from Hell Comes to Frogtown (week 206) to appear in Maximum Overdrive.
• You might remember Christine Anne Baur from Mannequin: On the Move (week 378). She was in Maximum Overdrive, too.
• Emilio Estevez, the star of Maximum Overdrive, also had a small part in Never on Tuesday (week 387).
• Finally, Maximum Overdrive and Stone Cold (week 423) both featured Gene Hartline.
• Have you seen Maximum Overdrive? What do you think of it? Are you a Stephen King fan? What stuff from him do you enjoy? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
• Twitter and the comments are also good places to let me know what movies I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. Drop a suggestion. It might just end up in the schedule.
• Make sure to head over to Instagram for more Sunday “Bad”Movies fun. Hopefully with some more spare time, I’ll get things cooking over there again. Next week is the perfect week for it.
• Speaking of next week, it’s a big week. It’s a franchise week. Oooooh. Ahhhh. I’ll be covering a trilogy of movies from the early 90s about a renegade cop doing whatever he wants for his own idea of law and order. Most of the time, that doesn’t mean any law or order at all. Maniac Cop and its two sequels will be the subject of next week’s post. I hope you’ll join me for another post when that goes up. See you then.