Sometimes you see a directorial debut, and you can’t wait to see what else they’ve done. And sometimes you find a bunch of really great movies that you had never heard of, or rewatch old ones in a new light. Or sometimes you find that they haven’t made anything since. And you wonder: “Why? What happened?” and you’re so disappointed to see that they never made a return to directing after such an amazing debut.

And sometimes still, you watch Maximum Overdrive. Now don’t get me wrong, this movie is a classic, and I enjoy it immensely, but let’s face it; it’s pretty obvious why Stephen King has never returned to the director’s seat. Maximum Overdrive is, for the uninitiated, a movie where all kinds of electronic devices (even the kind that run without any electricity at all, see: sprinklers, and lawn mowers), begin attacking a city full of the stupidest people, and most breakable glass in the world.

Seriously! People are stopping on top of a drawbridge that’s opening, and refusing to get out of their vehicles, as cars roll down the street, and windshields are shattered by fruit. All the while AC/DC is blaring on in the background. I wonder how the meeting went when King decided he wanted the entire soundtrack provided by an 80’s hair band.

Begin Transcription

King: Listen guys, I’ve got a great idea.

Studio Head: Alright, let’s hear it.

K: Music by AC/DC.

SH: Sure, yeah. They’re pretty popular right now. Let’s see if they’ll put a song on the soundtrack.

K: No. All the music. All AC/DC.

SH: Uhh … Mr. Kin-

K: It’s happening. Twenty AC/DC songs and that’s it.

SH: What about a little scored music? Some suspense.

K: Listen. Nothing is more intense that AC/DC, am I right?

SH: Well …

K: Hell yeah, I am. Make it happen.

SH: I don’t think-

K: I’m Stephen effing King! You know how many books I’ve written? Like a million! You can’t stop this!

End Transcription

Anyway, however it went down, it went down. The entire soundtrack is provided by AC/DC. A bold move I must say. Also hilarious. So all these electronics (and kind-of-electronics, and non-electronics, and pretty much anything Stephen King thought might be scary) start going crazy, and killing everyone. Why? Because a comet is passing close to the Earth, and either everything is shorting out, causing an endless stream of bizarre coincidences that leave a bunch of people dead, or that comet was sent by someone that really didn’t like us.

Most of the movie focuses on a group of survivors (including Emilio “Not in Enough Movies These Days” Estevez) who are holed up in a gas station which is being circled by vengeful semi trucks. It gets even more insane when it is revealed that the psychotic station owner has a basement full of weapons, including, but no limited to, rocket launches. The next 30 or so minutes features almost everyone in the place taking turns firing rockets in every direction imaginable. Don’t forget, this is all taking place at a gas station; apparently the film makers did.

The best section of the whole movie is the first 20 minutes. No time is wasted. Here’s how it goes down. AC/DC. Cars driving. Everyone starts dying. More AC/DC. Title. More people start dying. People start dying in more ridiculous ways. AC/DC. A pop machine totally murders a softball coach. Kids stand around like idiots. Pop machine wastes no time in opening fire on them. Kid rides bike. Kid crashes bike. Kid is run over by a mother fucking steam roller! Yes! Steve at Lost Highway told me an interesting story about how King thought it would be great to put a bag of blood on the dummy, so it looked like the kid’s head was popping. I guess he sent an early cut to George Romero, who told him it was way too gross, and they ended up taking it out. That had to be pretty intense to gross out Romero, or does he not watch his own movies?

Overdrive starts to drag toward the middle/ending when there is an amazingly long and detailed montage of people filling gas for an indeterminable amount of time. All I know is it started in the afternoon, and ended in the afternoon, and everyone was exhausted from all that gas pumping. So either they were at it for a full day, or these people have never worked a real job. At one point a lady almost passed out. Was it supposed to be scary? I don’t know. Anyway, if you haven’t seen Maximum Overdrive, at least watch it until it gets boring. You don’t really need to see the end. To tell you truth I don’t even remember how it ends, and I just watched it.