Maximum Overdrive (1986) on Netflix
When a comet's tail crosses Earth, machines come alive and attack people. Cook Bill Robinson and the people at the Dixie Boy truck stop find themselves surrounded by trucks.
- Netflix1.7/5
- IMDb5.4/1040,540 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes14%
Trailer
Plot summary
A comet named Rhea-M crosses Earth, and machines everywhere come to life and attack people. At the Dixie Boy truck stop outside Wilmington, North Carolina, a gas pump sprays diesel into Duncan Keller's eyes and an electric knife hurts Wanda June, a waitress. Bill Robinson, a paroled ex-convict who cooks at the stop, finds the accidents strange. Newlyweds Connie and Curt find a corpse at a roadside gas station and drive off when a tow truck attacks them. A truck whose grille carries a giant Green Goblin mask knocks salesman Camp Loman into a ditch. Then the trucks parked at the Dixie Boy start up on their own and begin to circle the lot, holding the people inside.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- First-time director Stephen King said in a 2002 interview for the book Hollywood's Stephen King that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and... really didn't know what [he] was doing".
- Asked on set "Can we take out the blades?", Stephen King said "no, no, I like to see them"; told "we don't see them in the shot", he answered "No. No. Better that you let it", and kept refusing when the special effects department raised safety.
- While shooting the scene where a lawnmower comes alive in a residential neighborhood, Nannuzzi was struck in the right eye, his "shooting eye", by a large splinter of wood that had become lodged in the blade.
- Nannuzzi was helicoptered from the set and then flown to a hospital in Raleigh, where he eventually lost his eye; production was halted for a brief period, but he returned to finish the film.
- After the film was released, Nannuzzi sued Stephen King, De Laurentiis Productions and sixteen others involved with the film for $18 million; the suit was filed in New York, and the case was later settled for $975,000.
- Stephen King originally wanted Bruce Springsteen to play Bill Robinson, but Springsteen was unknown to De Laurentiis, who personally hired "Martin's (Sheen) son", Emilio Estevez; that insistence is believed to be when King became disillusioned with the production.
- Gaffer Jock Brandis said King rode a motorcycle from Maine to Wilmington so he could ride alongside semi-trucks and feel how terrifying big rigs are up close; arriving at the studio on his bike, security would not let him through the gate.
