Maximum Overdrive Turns 35

Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s my undying devotion as a “Constant Reader.” Maybe I’m just a sucker for seeing Pat Hingle fire a bazooka. Whatever the reason, I shamelessly love Maximum Overdrive. This first and only film directed by Stephen King is pure celluloid mayhem. Universally panned by critics and nearly as disliked by audiences, it is a weird, wild, illogical mess of a movie. It is also thoroughly entertaining. I just find it so very hard to dislike a movie that begins with a director’s cameo involving a bank machine calling him an asshole before transitioning into an AC/DC song. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories, rumors, and speculations to be found floating around the internet, but I want to focus on the movie itself and take it on its own terms… read more >