Maximum Overdrive 1986
Directed by Stephen King · 97 mins · 1,353 views
Synopsis
Trailers
Reviews (76)
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W
The only film Stephen King ever directed, and I can see why! Apparently King was so coked out making this, he blinded his DP with a lawnmower. Not great! It’s basically Night of the Living Dead but with trucks instead of zombies. About as scary as you’d imagine. Giving it an extra half star because there were a few really funny kills. Highlights include: a little league team being run over with a steamroller after their coach gets his head caved in by a soda machine firing cans at him, several splatters across the grills of various Mack trucks, and an assortment of gawping, truck stop rubes and grotesques getting raked with machine gun fire. Before going on to conquer prestige TV in their own rights: Frankie Faison, Leon Rippy, and Giancarlo Esposito all appeared in this film.
270 5 -
M
If this is supposed to be a horror film, it is an abject failure. It’s not ever scary, even for a second. But if it’s supposed to be a comedy, then it is a masterpiece, sort of like a parody of King’s THE MIST by King himself, about people tortured by trucks (who act like drunken belligerent assholes) rather than giant bugs. Highlights include the scene where a soda machine comes to life and shoots cans at a man’s genitals at high-speed, and the scene where the gas station attendant farts a lot. I was also a fan of the part where one of the characters says the phrase “maximum overdrive.”
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D
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I
Rage against the machines. Campy, drugged up fun that feels like it exists in some sort of wildly weird Alex Cox wasteland. King’s lone directorial credit—a cocaine fueled ‘inanimate machines come to life and turn homicidal’ absurdity jam is really something else. ATM ‘asshole’, nose picking card player, John Landisesque bridge insanity, watermelons, diesel to the eyes, electronic meat cutter mayhem, soda vending machine massacre, steamrolled little leaguers, renegade lawnmower, people smashed with pickup trucks, blood all over the place, fucking bazookas, and an insane amount of over the top explosions. I can’t believe I used to have this fun, ridiculous adaptation of Trucks that feels akin to some bizarro world version of The Mist rated so low, I kinda love it now.
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H
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J
Thought based on its maligned reputation and the opening few minutes that show a real blacked-out cocaine addict’s creative energy for a world where our machines have gone violently mad and turned against their makers (the blunt force vending machine can murder of a dad followed by the gruesome steamrolling of his child…) that I was going to like this more. But then starts in the long, sleepy wait where between the occasional burst of gleeful little boy chaos/destruction of trucks and rocket launchers and AC/DC, King clearly thinks he’s doing a Romero or Carpenter satirical apocalyptic siege hangout movie… Just with character work written by an alien trying and failing to pretend it’s had a human interaction (or even…
200 2 -
M
In theory, one would assume Stephen King making an entire movie centered on the premise from Transformers (2007) where the AllSpark falls to the ground and turns every piece of tech from an Xbox to a Mountain Dew vending machine into a Decepticon would be a no-fail 80s campfest banger. However, as King has shown us numerous times, cocaine is one hell of a drug, and instead of killer machine mayhem we get abysmal dialogue and dumb shit like a chick getting strangled by her blow dryer and a dog getting an RC car jammed in its mouth. The bazooka vs 18-wheelers scene(s) are tight, though. Plus we get a title drop in the script, a bangin’ AC/DC soundtrack, and…
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L
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A
The cinematic equivalent of being served a Mountain Dew with blood in it because you ordered it that way.
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C
Tremors with trucks! The Mist with machines! Stephen King with coke! You can’t convince me the world is a worse place with Maximum Overdrive in it. You can’t tell me a film where Gordon Bombay calls a tractor-trailer with a goblin head a “fuck face” has no merit. We live in a beautiful world filled with beautiful ideas.
254 5 -
VVIVE_le_FILTH 8 月 25, 2026
“What the fuck?” It’s Dawn of the Dead but with heavy goods vehicles directed by a book nerd coke fiend … what more do you want? … Gone with the Wind? “This machine just called me an asshole!” It has a two second set up and then straight in with massive car pile up on a raised bridge with lots of big melons while being soundtracked by AC/DC … that’s how to start a movie! “Are you on something?” I could try and defend this movie (but can’t or won’t) and say it’s a masterpiece … it ain’t! but I do love it! (shame on you!) plus King has gone on record to say at the time he was off…
195 19 -
G
Pretty funny and good for them for killing that kid!
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I
The best film I’ve ever seen to feature Emilio Estevez get sassy to a sentient truck.
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L
La cocaïne est plutôt bonne ici
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K
What a fucking blast!!! Those kids got fucked up!! This is bad but at least it’s fun, especially when watching with a bunch of friends in a theatre! Special shout out to Emilio Estevez’ slutty little earring, so hot.
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BBrett McNeill 8 月 23, 2026
*/**** Excellent Trash!
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M
About 15 or so years ago, I bought at the now-closed HMV superstore my first ever AC/DC album. It had an eerily dark, blue color, with the light shining on the guitarist. AC/DC and the album’s title, Who Made Who, were both front and centre, but the film’s title for which the soundtrack was for in such miniscule writing, almost as an afterthought. Flash forward to a summer Sunday night where I could finally hear, on the big screen, the…
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W
Littéralement transformers, sauf que les explosions sont remplacées par des morts et des gosses écrasés
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S
Scemo forte, verso la fine un po’ ripetitivo
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A
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R
Oh to be this infamous
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S
kept getting distracted because i thought colin from redlettermedia was at my screening but when the lights came up it was just some balding guy
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P
Humains VS Machines Un scénario debile, le film tourne en rond autour du fait que les machines se commandent toutes seules, pendant 1h30. Vraiment naze même pour 1986. Stephen King, reste à l’écriture et laisse le cinéma stp. 1 étoile pour la B.O signée AC/DC
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R
Caminhões, refrigerantes, cortadores de grama… tudo vira assassino. Stephen King dirigiu esse filme e depois admitiu que estava completamente chapado durante as filmagens. Honestidade rara.
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R
Not a good movie per se, but the benefit of having Stephen King direct is that the characters feel more engaging than your average b-movie horror even if he clearly wrote this during the coke years. Kid b-plot genuinely might be the best part of this movie. Wild to see Lisa Simpson and Gustavo Fring in this movie.
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P
Quite poor. Easy to see that King was coked out of his mind making this trash. Give it 1.5 stars because there are some laugh out loud funny deaths and there a few good AC/DC tracks.
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E
Silly
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P
Just what I needed when my brain was not braining due to chronic illness. Even through the brain fog, Yardley Smiths screams are still annoying. It’s mad, bad and a shit load of fun no matter how awake you are.
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A
2nd time around. Still pretty damn fun
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G
The Green Goblin truck is super cool and there’s a lot of AC/DC songs… otherwise not great
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M
This is as peak Stephen King as you can get and it delivers on just how cheesy he really is as a writer, don‘t get me wrong I love his work but this perfectly encapsulates how corny he can be.
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P
Beautifully baffling tone perfectly encompassed by the mix of AC/DC and horror movie stings
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S
Such dumb fun. ACDC on heavy rotation throughout. Electronics turning on humans. Fun action and set pieces. Excellent stuff.
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P
Disons les choses franchement : Stephen King est peut-être “l’écrivain le plus lu au monde”, et un des Maîtres de l’horreur devant sa machine à écrire, mais c’est aussi un artiste raté derrière une caméra 😅. Première (et dernière) réalisation du King, Maximum Overdrive est un triste constat d’échec, et une nullité sans pareille. Une merde à fuir, sauf si vous aimez les nanars qui flirtent à la limite du mauvais teléfilm de série Z…
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A
I honestly enjoyed it It’s all over the place, but kind of a blast Well at least Stephen King can write horror stories, cause this was a damn near comedy
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S
Required viewing for the first cinematic appearance of the Green Goblin, leaks say this version might be coming to Doomsday. I don’t really know what to say about this movie, in many ways it really is a hotel movie if I’ve seen one. Would certainly stay in mind if I had watched it on a hotel. But I didn’t, I watched this on the sanctity of my home, which only opened the question of how much coke was needed for…
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T
Hot take #1: Current billionaire technofascists’ dreams of a world in which technology ruling over us common rubes, despite having been traced to 90s cyber libertarian texts like The Sovereign Individual (see the recently-published The Nerd Reich), the real model of their vision is Maximum Overdrive. Because no way those liquid-brained goons actually read and retained information from a book, and this movie actually matches the stupidity of their goals. Hot take #2: Conventional wisdom has it that Stephen King,…
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O
Maximum campy fun nonsense by Stephen King! It’s such a good fun show off many cool looking trucks with explosion and destruction.
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K
holy buns in a ballsack
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M
Movie Grade: B-
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V
i feel deeply maternal towards these vehicles. theyre like big animals or beetles of some kind to me. the way they honk and bark and sniff around and nudge people and play cute little songs on the radio. theyre adorable. i want an ATM to call me an asshole and then a bunch of big trucks bully me for a while. that gas filling scene was crafted in a lab for objectum carfuckers
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T
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C
It really is all just an excuse to blow shit up.
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K
AC/DC soundtrack goes so hard. I loved a lot of the truck explosions—some fun stuff there. The opening bridge scene is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a movie like this. If/when the robots take over the world, I can’t wait to be yelling “WE MADE YOU!” as if it might save us all.
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B
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M
A comet’s tail wraps itself around our planet and turns vehicles and appliances into sentient killers! Hairdryers, Walkman players, meat slicers, Power Wheels, semi-trucks—you name it! (Likely even vibrators, although the movie wisely does not go there.) Why is the comet keen to get rid of us? Beats me! (One character mumbles something about aliens wanting to make Earth their home, but he’s delirious when he makes this claim, so best take it with a grain of salt.) Anyway, a…
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C
Everybody talks about how this was a coked up fever dream but nobody talks about the fact that Giancarlo Esposito was in this. Why? Also this was truly slop except the 100% AC/DC soundtrack made it badass slop therefore 2 stars
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J
Vandaag koos ik voor een film die ik een tijdje geleden op dvd vond: Maximum Overdrive (1986).Een typische, heerlijk absurde Stephen King-verfilming 🤣. Dit keer zijn het machines en auto’s die het op de mensheid gemunt hebben en mensen beginnen te vermoorden. 🚗💀Het is absoluut geen film die zichzelf al te serieus neemt, maar juist die absurde premisse maakt hem zo leuk om eens te bekijken.Leuk weetje: helemaal aan het begin van de film maakt Stephen King zelf een kleine verschijning. 👍🎬Al bij al een heerlijke jaren-80 cultfilm die mooi in mijn collectie past. 📀🤘
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C
GM never recovered from this
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K
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B
The survivors of the Dixie Boy are still survivors. Yes, I am one of those knuckleheads who has loved this movie ever since the first time I saw it. Emilio Estevez and Stephen King have both expressed regret over this film, but I say, “why?” Honestly, had they actually made a GOOD movie, it would never have been as much fun or entertaining as this one was! This is a classic in its own campy, weird way, and I’m so…
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WWhoknee_Whovian 8 月 21, 2026
The new Stephen King Remake we ACTUALLY need these days. Give this man his cocaine and some trucks. I’ve seen Maxmimum Overdrive for How Did This Get Made, It Was A Shit Show, and a number of comedy commentary channels at this point maybe 5-10 times including watching it with the boys. Every time it’s just as goofy, it’s just as silly, and I’m guessing comparable to actually doing cocaine. Great time. Maximum AC/DC.
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A
Awful acting, sorry
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C
Why trucks and not cars? A toilet paper truck! How have I never seen this? Plus one for AC⚡️DC
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G
Seriously, reading Stephen King really downgrades my opinion of his movies. Maximum Overdrive was never a banger, but it was working in its hilarious way, with the actual story read, its just silly nonsense and a movie that not really can decide if it wants to be tense or funny. Ernsthaft, Stephen King Geschichten zu kennen downgraded echt die Filme. Maximum Overdrive war nie ein Knaller, hat aber in seiner albernen Art und Weise funktionit, jetzt wo ich die Geschichte kenne ist das aber echt der letzte Murks und es ist deutlich, dass der Film sich nicht entscheiden kann, ob er spannend oder albern sein will.
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SSam 8 月 20, 2026
“Written for the screen and directed” ok but let me stop you there cuz no not really
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D
I have seen this a LOT of times for a fairly dull movie I don’t really care for. I’m always reminded this has some good scenes (can’t hate anything with a lot of ‘splosions) but there’s so many characters and it feels like it dragggggs in the back half
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G
Reading a Stephen King story and then watching the movie – part 10 I’ve seen the movie a few times as a kid and thought I liked it, so when I didn’t really care for the story I was sure the movie was going to be more fun. It’s not. It’s kind of dull. There is some promise in the first 20 minutes then bogs down. Neither are interesting enough to point out the differences.
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G
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K
Stephen King’in yönetmen koltuğuna oturduğu ilk ve son film. Filmin çekimleri sırasında alkol ve uyuşturucu bağımlılığıyla mücadele ediyormuş, ayık kafayla böyle bir şey çekilemezdi zaten. Filmdeki iyi şeylerden birisi soundtrack kısmını AC/DC’ye emanet etmeleri diğeri de bolca kamyon görmemiz. Stephen King aynı zamanda bu eşsiz performansı ile Razzie Awards En Kötü Yönetmen dalında aday gösterilmiş ancak kazanamamış. Filmi 10 milyon dolar bütçe ile çekiyorlar ve gişe hasılatında 8 milyon dolar ile çakılıyor, kâr etmeleri mucize olurdu.
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A
If he was coked to the max during production King should have used that energy to make something appropriately crazy instead of this snoozefest!
4 1 -
F
This is the Stephen King coke movie, it shows, and it is probably better for it.
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J
Pouet pouet
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K
Deke absolutely carried this very strange film. It may also be Esposito’s best work
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A
I’ve concluded that Stephen King is possibly one of the worst directors of all time
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V
The characters were stupid af. They were literally surrounded by killer electronics and they decided to crack bsf (ngl id crack her to but wtv)
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C
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R
There’s a good chunk where it’s so bad it’s good and I think part of it is it’s self aware. Maybe it isn’t? Maybe it’s because King just isn’t a good director? I don’t know but the other say…60% of the film is just boring. Editing and pacing are terrible. It’s the same setup we’ve seen from Dawn of the Dead, Assault on Pricent 13, to the Mist. Problem is it jumps around terribly between literally dozens of stock characters…
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I
stephen emilio gasoline hard 3.75
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L
Not many movies have the juice to steamroller a ten-year-old in the first 15 minutes. Very bad, of course, but I can’t call it without merit, because I looked away for a minute and when I looked back, Pat Hingle had a LAW rocket launcher and I had no idea how. It absolutely overstays its welcome & the back half takes a g e s.
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P
I can’t really say that I was disappointed, since I wasn’t really expecting anything. As a huge AC/DC fan, the soundtrack being entirely composed of eight or nine of their songs was definitely the highlight for me. And the Green Goblin truck is pretty sick.
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H
“The whole goddamn world is going tits up.” Well, that was absolutely ridiculous, but fun. It’s a good time if you just want to watch something stupid. Wild how it seems like they forgot to finish the movie and just threw some text up on the screen explaining it away ala the Poochie episode of the Simpsons. (No real spoilers but stop reading if you don’t want to know anything about the movie before watching) Random thoughts while watching: •…
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R
What to say about MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE? It is a bonkers film. A ridiculous plot, full of mediocre acting and gaping-wide plot holes (like why do all the semi-trucks and small household appliances come alive to revolt against their owners/users but only a couple of the cars do?), and the abrupt ending that just comes out of nowhere. Anyway, nobody watches MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE as cinematic art. We watch it for its ridiculousness, and maybe for the killer AC/DC soundtrack – Who…
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Eeden 7 月 8, 2026
i had no idea what i was getting into haha. decently fun but not sure i was totally in the mood for it so I’ll refrain from rating it.
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N
I HAVE to stop watching steven king movies…
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BB_Movie_Bingo 9 月 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 – First Movie
- Synopsis
- When a comet passes close to the earth, machines all over the world come alive and go on homicidal rampages. A group of people at a desolate truck stop are held hostage by a gang of murderous 18-wheelers. The frightened people set out to defeat the killer machines…Or be killed by them.
- Director
- Stephen King
- Writer
- Stephen King
- Studio
- DEG
- Country
- USA
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1986
- Runtime
- 97 mins
- Portugal01 Feb 1988
- Canada13 Jul 1986
- USA25 Jul 1986
- Italy10 Oct 1986
- Australia06 Nov 1986
- Austria21 Nov 1986
- Sweden30 Jan 1987
- UK09 Mar 1987
- Colombia17 Jun 1987
- Netherlands02 Jul 1987
- Japan11 Jul 1987
- Ireland07 Aug 1987
- Mexico04 Sep 1987
- Argentina19 Nov 1987
- France25 Nov 1987
- Portugal26 Feb 1988
- Thailand24 Sep 1988
- UK21 Oct 1988
- Finland09 Jun 1989
- Poland17 Apr 2009
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