The Trucks are Coming for You

Author Stephen KingRising to fame with the release of his first book, Carrie, Stephen King is one of the most prolific, and most successful, American authors (in any genre, not just horror). is one of the largest and most diverse bibliographies of practically any writer in American history. He’s written over 65 novels and 200 short stories, and, since 1974, has only had five years where a single book wasn’t released (and these were bookended by years where he multiple books out at a time, such as 1985 where no book was released, but 1984 had three with The Talisman, The Eyes of the Dragon, and Thinner). In short, he is a prolific and constant writer who simply doesn’t seem to know when to quit (even when he’s discussing a possible retirement every few years or so).

Of course, with that diverse of a bibliography, with works spanning from sci-fi to fantasy and lots and lots of horror, not everything the writer creates is going to be great. Some of his books are absolute masterpieces (I really loved the first four books in The Dark Tower cycle) while others have fallen very flat (like the last three books in the main The Dark Tower cycle). But that doesn’t stop the writer, nor does that keep Hollywood from sniffing around. With as many books and stories as King has written, it should come as no surprise that the movie studios have tried, time and again, to translate his works to the big screen. There have been 50 movies and television series based on King’s works, with another ten in active development at the time of this writing. And, naturally not all of these adaptations have been any good.

I would actually go so far as to state that most adaptations of King’s works have been less than impressive. There are the obvious failures we all know about, like Children of the Corn and Firestarter, to the absolutely, bafflingly god awful works such as The Dark Tower and Dreamcatcher. This is an issue Hollywood is even aware of, with the studios realizing that his works are hard to bring properly to the screen (but they still try, over and over, because he’s a blockbuster writer with a big name). There were such struggles to get King’s works to translate properly that, at one point, a studio decided they should just go to the source and have King write and direct his own work. And that’s how we got the massive failure that was Maximum Overdrive.

Developed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, Maximum Overdrive is Stephen King’s only directorial effort. He was approached by studio head, Dino De Laurentiis, to try and find a way to bring his own story to the big screen. The story in question was “Trucks”, a short story from the author’s first collection, Night Shift. And, yes, it is gloriously bad. The thing is, though, that I don’t think the fault really lies with King as the writer and director. The script shows all the usual King flourishes, and the movie itself is fairly well directed. The big issue is that this story just isn’t interesting and, worse, it’s very hard to make the main villain (sentient trucks) scary or interesting. “Trucks” should not have been brought to the screen (which, obviously, is why years later a second attempt was made to adapt it again).

In the film, the Earth passes into the tail of a rogue comet, Rhea-M, bathing the planet if faint green particulates. Within hours of the planet passing into the tail of the comet, every machine on Earth starts to malfunction. Bridges begin to rise, lawn mowers go crazy, arcade machines electrocute people, and vehicles gain a mind of their own. People start dying, left, right, and center, because humanity is so reliant on machines that when they suddenly turn against their masters, there’s nothing humans can do. Bodies drop, the machines take over, and it’s up to the survivors to, well, survive.

Over at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop, a motley crew of employees and customers, including owner and manager Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), ex-con and fry cook Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez), and hitchhiking traveler Brett Graham (Laura Harrington), all witness the machines and vehicles come to life. The trucks outside start moving, barrelling over people and killing them, one by one, all with a murderous rage no one could have seen coming. The trucks are mad, and the humans will suffer their wrath. But trucks need gas, which means they are reliant on humans as well. So they line up, one by one, to get their fuel from the humans they’ve turned into their servants. But if Bill can find a way for them all to escape, they can flee the truck stop and escape their new mechanical masters, waiting out the comet’s tail which should fade in another six days.

There is a lot that’s wrong with Maximum Overdrive, make no mistake, but I do want to note that I don’t think the film is poorly made. For this being King’s first time ever behind the camera, the author had a fairly strong sense of what to do. His blocking and pacing are good, he knew how to get solid performances out of the actors (even if said actors all generally had terrible accents they were using), and he had a good eye for composition. He struggled to make the film scary, but I blame that on the concept itself. I do think, though, that if he had wanted, or been given, a second chance in the director’s chair he probably could have made a pretty decent film eventually. He just should not have been the one to tackle Maximum Overdrive, not for his first ever effort.

With that out of the way, yes, this film is bad. Not as bad as I’d always heard, but bad all the same. It’s a very silly, very watchable kind of bad that, in all honesty, fails to live up to its status as one of the worst King adaptations ever. There are films from his library that I hate a whole hell of a lot more (we can always single out the Children of the Corn films, if we want) while I actually could see going back to watch Maximum Overdrive again. Likely that would be so I could laugh at it, but still, a willing watch is a willing watch, however it comes about.

The biggest issue with the film is that, more often than not, it fails to make the machines scary. The trucks and mowers and everything else are the villains of the film, given sentience and a murderous desire for vengeance against their creators, but you very rarely feel like they’re much of a threat. Occasionally something cool happens, such as when an electric meat knife goes crazy and cuts into a woman’s arm, or when a soda machine manages to hurl cans hard enough to brain someone (which is an objectively stupid idea but is fun nonetheless), but more often the machines fail to elicit even a modicum of terror just due to the way they are presented.

Here’s a scenario from the film: a person goes outside because they need to get home to their family. As they’re walking, a truck starts up behind them, slowly gaining speed to run over the person. The person hears them, turns, looks at the truck, screams, and then seconds later is run over. That’s basically every scene where someone gets run over, whether it’s from a truck, or an ice cream van, or a steamroller. Turn, look, pause, scream, squish.

What’s missing every time, and is the one thing you’d expect anyone to do, is the person making any movement to get out of the way. No dodging, not throwing themselves to the ground, just turn and scream so the truck can run them over. That’s not scary, that’s stupid. The movie needs to present these moments as if the truck were smarter, meaner, and deadlier than the person they’re attacking. It shouldn’t work like a skit from Austin Powers where a man screams over and over while a steamroller slowly moves towards them, but that’s exactly what it feels like. When this is the main source of your scares, and your kills, that’s a major issue.

And then when you couple this with the fact that the movie goes out of its way to not only explain why the trucks have cone ballistic, but also sets a clear deadline for when all of this will be over, you have to wonder how any part of this was supposed to be scary. If I were in this scenario, I’d gather all the dry goods I could, go hide in a basement, and leave it so the vehicles couldn’t see me at all. Just waiting for eight days in a dark, remote area eating beans until it all blows over. The fact that no one ever suggests this, and actually treats this scenario like it’s some big apocalypse, just stretches credulity to its breaking point.

So yeah, again, Maximum Overdrive is bad. But it’s silly bad. Well meaning bad. The kind of bad you can enjoy with a group of friends while you heckle the movie. It’s never so overtly awful that you have to wonder how the movie ever got released. It’s just… mediocre. A bad film with moderate talent involved that probably all should have been put towards a better story. Maybe a more experienced director could have gotten better scares out of this material. Or maybe someone should have said, “sentient trucks is a terrible idea for a horror movie.” But this was the film we got, and it’s the one we get to enjoy when it’s late and you want to watch something bad. In that context, it actually kind of works.