Stephen King movies and TV shows have been surging into cinemas and onto streaming platforms by the dozen over the last two decades and have been among some of his most successful adaptations ever. This has included this year’s The Life of Chuck, a two-part adaptation of It (which gets a prequel TV series this month on HBO Max), and The Monkey. However, in the 80s it seemed that it was a real struggle to make a decent Stephen King movie – even for the man himself, who directed the disastrous Maximum Overdrive. However, even the worst movies find love on streaming, and the project that King himself has acknowledged is a terrible movie has found success on free streaming.
King’s self-confessed least favorite project has driven into the Top 10 on Tubi as Halloween approaches and everyone trawls through the best and worst horror cinema out there. That means, along with classics such as The Exorcist and Halloween, movies such as Maximum Overdrive have every chance of attracting an audience this month.
Starring Emilio Estevez and released in 1986, Maximum Overdrive is a classic King set-up – a bunch of trucks and other machines becoming sentient after a comet strike brings them to life and causes them to turn on their owners. For those that want a bit more of a plot summary, the official synopsis reads:
“After a comet causes a radiation storm on Earth, machines come to life and turn against their makers. Holed up in a North Carolina truck stop, a group of survivors must fend for themselves against a mass of homicidal trucks. A diner cook, Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez), emerges as the unlikely leader of the pack, attempting to find an escape plan for himself and the survivors, who include his boss, Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), and a newlywed couple.”
How Bad Is ‘Maximum Overdrive’?
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
The words “streaming for free” is like catnip to some people, meaning that even the worst movies get an equal shot at success on platforms like Tubi and Pluto TV. There are some people who like nothing better than finding the weirdest and funniest horror movies out there – you know the ones that have dogs in fluffy coats pretending to be rats, and ones with big rubber monsters that might as well be a bathtub duck with teeth drawn on it.
Maximum Overdrive is that kind of bad movie. Although there are no man-in-suit aliens, there is plenty of cheese, very little horror, and, as King said himself, it is just a “wonderfully moronic picture.” Boasting (if that’s the right word) a 14% Tomatometer score, there are several critics who use the line, “King did not direct this movie, cocaine did.” While some would take this as a slur, it is hard to call it anything other than stone-cold fact considering it is a line King himself has said. In his own words:
“I was coked out of my mind all through its production, and I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
It should be pointed out that the film’s Popcornmeter score sits at a much more acceptable 50%, which is higher than many of today’s big blockbuster movies achieve, so it may be a “bad” movie, but it is a movie that definitely falls into the category of “so bad it’s good.” That is usually more than enough for the film to land on many playlists when it appears on recommended lists on free streaming.
If you are looking for something loud and brash that does not require a lot of thought, then Maximum Overdrive is a movie to help you fill the dark nights as spooky season gets under way. It is definitely not The Shining or Misery, but even coked-up King is worth the time among the free streaming offerings.
- Release Date
-
July 25, 1986
- Runtime
-
98 minutes
