10 Horror Movies Where The Villain Is A Supposedly Inanimate Object

The film that began and ended Stephen King's filmmaking career, Maximum Overdrive shows why writers should probably just stick to what they know.

With an interesting and utterly manic premise ripped straight from one of King's own short stories (Trucks), the film sees all of the world's machines turn sentient, embarking on a mass killing spree. It is difficult to pin down a single villain as pretty much everything electric decides it is time to have some fun with their human overlords and establish something of a new world order. The spate of creative mishaps and fatalities involves trucks, road rollers, ATMs and vending machines, and fun and thoroughly gory shenanigans guide the Earth towards an apocalypse and its populace to the edge of extinction.

While few of the entries in this article could have been considered anything close to a commercial hit (the majority having only limited, if any, cinematic release), Maximum Overdrive will be the one most remembered for having the least impact. Neither a money-maker, critical success nor fan favourite, every frame smacks of King's inexperience as a director. While the premise is sound and the villains are many, the film's failure on all fronts means we can only hope something of this scale is attempted again one day in the future...

Hey, maybe Dean Koontz is free?