Ep. 29: Maximum Overdrive

"WE MADE YOU! WEEEEE MAAAAAADE YOOOOUUUUUU!"

Ahem, er yes, now that we've got that out of our system, let's gear up for the third and final installment of our BIG TRUCK TRILOGY. Master of horror Stephen King has left his mark across scary cinema for decades, but perhaps surprisingly, he only ever directed one film. And it's this one. And it's CRAZY.

Maximum Overdrive throws a simple premise at us in its opening moments - a comet passing by Earth possesses all of our machines, making them sentient and murderous. That's really all there is to it. From the word go, machines start chop chop chopping people up in increasingly creative and deranged ways, until we finally find ourselves trapped at the Dixie Boy truck stop with Gordon Bombay, Lisa Simpson, and Commissioner Gordon. And Commissioner Gordon has a ton of rocket launchers in the basement.

Sound amazing? It is amazing. Stephen King famously hates his one and only foray into the director's chair, but we're here to cut through the negativity like an electric carving knife sawing through a diner waitress' arm. Maximum Overdrive is a surprisingly dense and thought provoking movie with incredible stunt sequences, a killer soundtrack by freakin' AC/DC, and a genuinely iconic horror villain - The Goblin Truck!

So in this episode, we'll be talking about how this film makes some powerful statements about consumerism and how it's destroying humanity, extrapolating that into deeper meditations on how our increasingly digital lives have trapped us in a metaphorical truck stop, surrounded by mechanical vultures of our own making, just as the characters in the film find themselves stuck with no escape.

We'll also be digging into the hazy history of one of the film's most infamous scenes - you know, the one where a steamroller pulverizes a little league kid? Lots of folks remember that scene being a bit different when they saw it back in the 80's...but was it? Or is it just a case of the Mandela Effect at work?

There's a ton of wild stuff to dive into with this one, and as you'll hear us mention in the episode, if you want to see the original Green Goblin truck face live and in person, you can catch it this Halloween season at a spooky event near you! Check out thegoblinproject.com to find out where the restored prop is heading in October!

Oh! And hey! This is the second to last episode of Season 1! Woohoo! Thanks so much to everyone who has listened in so far! This has been such a fun project to launch and we're working on a special awards show style episode featuring all the films we've covered over the last year to wrap things up at the end of the month. So until then, keep it incredibly strange!

Maximum Overdrive
Directed by Stephen King
1986, United States

Additional music credits:

"Mississippi River" by Musicoman Free, @musicomanfree on YouTube and Instagram, "Drive Into the Night" by Harris Heller, and multiple AC/DC-style backing tracks by Rob Cavallo Music and Rock On Jam Tracks.

Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.