Maximum Overdrive (1986)

"The whole goddamn worlds gone tits upRolf"

Plot
As the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, previously inanimate objects (ranging from vehicles to lawnmowers to an electric knife) start to show a murderous life of their own.

In a pre-title scene, a man (cameoed by Stephen King, the film's writer and director) tries to withdraw money from an ATM, but it instead calls him an "asshole".

Marauding big rig trucks trap a small group of people in a roadside truck stop called "The Dixie Boy" just outside Wilmington, North Carolina. When the trucks begin demanding more than blood (they order the humans to pump diesel), the Dixie Boy survivors realize they will become enslaved by their own machines, and they must escape to Haven Island just off the coast of North Carolina, on which no vehicles or machines were permitted.

Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez) rallies the survivors; they use a cache of guns found hidden under the diner. The trucks fight back themselves, at one point human fatalities result from an M274 "Mule" firing its mounted M60 machine gun into the building.

Eventually the survivors escape to the docks where the featured Green Goblin semi kills one more trucker. The semi is destroyed and the humans sail off to safety.

At film's end, a perfunctory title card strongly implies extraterrestrials were behind the homicidal machines as part of a preliminary invasion. The machines are stopped and the invasion ends with the destruction of a UFO by a Soviet "weather satellite" equipped with nuclear missiles and a laser cannon. == Cast == {| class="wikitable" border=1 !Actor!!Role
 * - style="background:#696969"
 * Emilio Estevez || Bill 'Billy' Robinson                                                                                                                                               |-
 * Pat Hingle || Bubba Hendershot
 * Laura Harrington || Brett
 * Christopher Murney || Camp Loman
 * Yeardley Smith || Connie
 * J.C. Quinn || Duncan Keller
 * John Short || Curtis 'Curt'
 * Holter Graham || Deke Keller                                            |-                                                                                                                                                          | Pat Miller || Joe 'Joey'                                                         |-                                                                                                                                                       | Ellen McElduff || Wanda June
 * -                                                                                                                                                         | Bob Gooden || Barry                                                                 |-                                                                                                                                                           | R. Pickett Bugg || Rolf
 * Giancarlo Esposito || Maximum Overdrive/Characters
 * Marla Maples || 2nd Woman
 * Martin Tucker || 2nd Man
 * Ned Austin || The Drawbridgemaster
 * Richard Chapman, Jr. || Ajirjint the Helper / Dead Gas Station Attendant
 * Bob Gunter || Coach
 * Bill Huggins || Umpire
 * Stephen King || Man At Bank ATM
 * Christopher Britton || Drive-thru machine voice
 * Hal Fishman || Anchorman Voice
 * Barry Nolan || Male Newscaster Voice
 * Greg Sheldon || AC/DC Van Driver
 * Jock Brandis || Dump Truck Driver
 * Connie Smith || Dead Woman In Car
 * -                                                                                                                                                              | Denver Mattson || Dead Man Killed by Chainsaw
 * -                                                                                                                                                            |}
 * Richard Chapman, Jr. || Ajirjint the Helper / Dead Gas Station Attendant
 * Bob Gunter || Coach
 * Bill Huggins || Umpire
 * Stephen King || Man At Bank ATM
 * Christopher Britton || Drive-thru machine voice
 * Hal Fishman || Anchorman Voice
 * Barry Nolan || Male Newscaster Voice
 * Greg Sheldon || AC/DC Van Driver
 * Jock Brandis || Dump Truck Driver
 * Connie Smith || Dead Woman In Car
 * -                                                                                                                                                              | Denver Mattson || Dead Man Killed by Chainsaw
 * -                                                                                                                                                            |}
 * Barry Nolan || Male Newscaster Voice
 * Greg Sheldon || AC/DC Van Driver
 * Jock Brandis || Dump Truck Driver
 * Connie Smith || Dead Woman In Car
 * -                                                                                                                                                              | Denver Mattson || Dead Man Killed by Chainsaw
 * -                                                                                                                                                            |}
 * Connie Smith || Dead Woman In Car
 * -                                                                                                                                                              | Denver Mattson || Dead Man Killed by Chainsaw
 * -                                                                                                                                                            |}

Notes & Trivia

 * First and last film that Stephen King has ever directed.
 * Prior to the release of Maximum Overdrive, there were a number of scenes that were showed to the MPAA that were considered "too extreme" at the time. These scenes were never reinstated in any DVD release and are presumed lost. The scenes were; Six seconds of the military vehicle shooting up Bubba Hendershot, then he moans "huuuh?" and droping the rocket launcher, three seconds of the driverless steamroller running over Bobby at the baseball diamond, three seconds of the Bible Salesman losing his face and it falling into his lap in the drainage ditch, three seconds of the ill-Fated Videoplayer saying "Wow!" just before getting zapped by an arcade machine in the Game Room, and about three seconds of the motorcyclist sliding down the drawbridge and throwing his arms over his face. There are also reports of a mattepainting of a major American city utterly in ruins by the hay-wired machines, we see a dead icecream man in the icecream truck as Deke hides from it in the suburbs, after Wanda is attacked by the electrical cutting-knife, a trucker, Frank (John Brasington), gets his right index finger sliced off by it. He screams and cluches the blooded stump close to his mouth, we actually get to see the dog in the suburbs get a remote-controlled toy police car rammed into its mouth (killing it), we also get to see a rotting blooded corpse of a schoolbus driver in the "retired" schoolbus; the camera zooms in on the corpses face, there's also a mangled up body by the lawnmower in the suburbs; the camera pans along the lawn slowly. Then we see that the body was chewed in half (by the waste up) covered in blood. We also get to see the Coach's forehead with an imprint from the can that swells up (like a basketball expanding in his head), then sprays blood out (like a waterfounting), and finally pops (leaving that red patch of blood on his forehead). Deke talks to the "near-dead" Coach just before he dies. Rumors were that these scenes were lost or destroyed by the studio. However, in the early 90s, there was a fully uncut VHS tape that was released by Karl-Lorimar Video (KLV-TV) that "infact" included all lost footage. The back of the cover had an R-Rated symbol slaped on.                                                                                                                                                             == See also ==