Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by Stephen King. The film stars Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, and a young Yeardley Smith. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King's short story "Trucks", which was included in King's first collection of short stories, Night Shift.
Maximum Overdrive is King's only directorial effort, though dozens of films have been based on King's novels. The film contained black humor elements and a generally campy tone, which contrasts with King's sombre subject matter in books. The film has a mid-1980s hard rock soundtrack composed entirely by the group AC/DC, King's favorite band. AC/DC's album Who Made Who was released as the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack. It includes the best-selling singles "Who Made Who", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and "Hells Bells".
The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Director for King and Worst Actor for Estevez in 1987, but both lost against Prince for Under the Cherry Moon. In 1988, Maximum Overdrive was nominated for "Best Film" at the International Fantasy Film Awards. King himself described the film as a "moron movie" and stated his intention to never direct again soon after. In a 2002 interview with Tony Magistrale for the book Hollywood's Stephen King, King stated that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing". King considers the film a learning experience.Synopsis
As the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, previously inanimate objects (ranging from weapons to electric signs to electronics to vehicles to lawnmowers to an electric knife) start to show a murderous life of their own. In a pre-title scene, a man (King in a cameo) tries to withdraw money from an ATM, but it instead calls him an "asshole", and he whines to his wife (King's real life wife Tabitha). Chaos soon begins as machines of all kinds come to life and begin assaulting humans: a drawbridge inexplicably raises during heavy traffic, resulting in multiple accidents, most notably the black AC/DC van and a watermelon truck; while at a Little League game, a vending machine kills the coach by firing canned soda point-blank into his groin and then to his skull; a driverless steamroller flattens one of the fleeing children.
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