MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE - Hail to the King!

Man, you have to feel bad for Stephen King. For years other directors have been ravaging his works in sub-par efforts that frankly blow (save for the very few rare exceptions). Sick and tired of getting mangled, King decides "Fine, I'll show you all and make a REALLY scary movie!"

The end result was. . . . how shall we say, less than scary.

We open as the Earth passes through the tail of a comet - never a good thing in these movies - and suddenly machines all over the planet begin behaving autonomously, and savagely attacking people. From soda machines to lawnmowers to bank machines to big-rig eighteen-wheeler trucks - which pretty much means that a truck stop is one of the most unfortunate choice of refuges one could take.

Pity nobody told Billy Robinson (Emilio Estevez) and his employer, Hendershot (Pat Hingle) over at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop that little tidbit of information.

And so the humans are besieged in some kind of cybernetic Assault on Prescient 13. Wanda June (Ellen McElduff), a waitress at the truck stop, is injured when an electric carving-knife turns on her. A mechanic is half-blinded when a pump squirts diesel in his face. The trucks at the stop begin driving themselves, and the mechanic is killed when a truck runs over him.

Meanwhile, a hitch-hiker (and soon to be love interest for Emilio) Brett (Laura Harrington), hears on the radio that similar incidents are occurring all over America. She and her driver, a randy old bastard of a bible-salesman, pull into the truck-stop. Further down the road, newly-weds Curtis and Connie (John Short and Yeardley Smith - who cant seem to stop doing Lisa Simpson's voice 5 years before she invented it!) are also attacked by a truck, managing to make it to the refuge just in time.

As the humans eventually need to take a pro-active stand soon, one of the other employees reveals that Hendershot has a cache of illegal arms in the basement of the truck stop. Thusly armed like only an eighties action movie could do, the trapped people begin to fight back against the machines.

Yeah, way to show them Stephen. That'll knock their socks off!

As I seem to recall, the original short story from the 1978 compilation Night Shift was actually pretty good - a nice tight scary piece of writing. Maximum Overdrive, on the other hand is pretty much not scary. Instead of saving one of his works from becoming a cinematic disaster, King manages to set about destroying his story more thoroughly than any director can possibly hope to.

The problems boil down thusly: Everyone in the movie is a moron, and while he may be able to write King has no idea how to direct.

The movie starts out strong, with the opening moments of machine rebellion with some really dark, funny moments of macabre. The ATM cussing out the customer, the attack of the rapid fire soda machine - it's goofy, but has a streak of sinister about it. Sadly things fall apart when we get to the Dixie Boy Truck Stop.

The characters, such as they are, are one note caricatures that do nothing more than scream and shout and swear at each other with some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film. While there is a certain brainlessness that we must accept as part and parcel as a genre convention, Maximum Overdrive takes it to all new levels.

They shout, they mistreat each other, swear enough to make a sailor embarrassed, and serve no other function than to die in several messy and reasonably creative ways. Our two leads - Emilio Estevez and Laura Harrington - are reasonably believable, with Pat Hingle at the other end of the spectrum as a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered one note character. While not necessarily believable, he is reasonably entertaining. Sadly this fate does not befall Yeardley Smith and her performance. Perhaps 20 years of the Simpsons has retro-actively typecast her forever, but I couldn’t see anyone but a shrill, whining, sniveling freshly married Lisa. If there was a moment where I was praying for god to come strike down one of these characters in a messy and reasonably creative way, it would be her.

Ya know, here I am ragging on the film when really - at least as far as bad movies goes - I'm making it sound much worse than it is. The Maximum Overdrive soundtrack, courtesy of Australian rockers AC/DC, is pretty hard core. The bits of ultra-violence are pretty good, and you have to admit that the lead bad guy truck is pretty memorable. The plot is dumb as a sack of hammers, but at least the movie never stops to let you ponder this point.

THE DVD -
You have to hand it to Anchor Bay - they know how to deliver a good looking product. We get a great looking anamorphic transfer with some vivid colors and great looking definition, and the source negative seems free of flaws or obvious damage.

THE EXTRAS -
The extras are pretty light this time out. We get a trailer, a text bio and a DVD case insert with a reproduction of the original Maximum Overdrive poster. Pity we don’t get any thoughts from King himself - it would have been interesting to see how 20 years of hindsight would have on his take of the movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Billed as a horror movie from the Master of Horror himself, Maximum Overdrive is really more of a dark comedy. And no, it's not very good - but it is reasonably entertaining and a whole lot of fun. Just check your brain at the door.