7 Stephen King Adaptations That Are Unintentionally Hilarious
2. Maximum Overdrive
Imagine: youre a truck brought to life for a few days, a once-in-a-career opportunity, but instead of heading south to catch some sun and shunt senoritas you think, screw it, Im gonna spend my vacation circling a truck stop in Wilmington, Delaware until Im dry and not just any stop, no sir, this ones operated by Charlie Sheens brother and has a cellar full of M-16s, bazookas and whatnot. Thats the premise of Maximum Overdrive, which Stephen King directed from his own script because he wanted to see it done right. If you didnt know that the author was an enthusiastic user of cocaine at the time, youd be able to guess after sitting through its 97 whacked-out minutes. Trucks sneak up on people unawares, victims brace themselves against being run over by holding their hands in front of their faces and sub-Bernard Herrmann strings are heard whenever someone is attacked. Then theres the dialogue. The biggest howler comes when girlfriend Laura Harrington tries to dissuade Emilio Estevez from refuelling the trucks. You cant do this, she tells him. Its like Neville Chamberlain giving in to the Nazis! Turns out theres nothing like a long day of refuelling monster killer trucks to cause a fella to reflect on his situation, so when Emilio hits the sack that night, hes developed his Broom theory. Lets say youre a race of aliens, looking for a new place to live, a new house, and you come across Earth, only its like this big old house and its kind of dirty, polluted and smoky. Grease on the walls, soot in the chimney. So these aliens send in their interstellar housekeepers. Send in their broom. Sweep us all up. Thats what this is, Emilio says. Its a broom.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
