To close this month of May, I have another Book-To-Movie review for you and the latest on my upcoming book of sci-fi horror short stories, “Bad Apps”! In case, you’re new to A Far Out Fantastic Site, well, first of all welcome! Second, you should know that a Book-To-Movie is where we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation, usually in the science fiction, horror, or fantasy genres.
Book-To-Movie Review: 'Trucks' / 'Maximum Overdrive'
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| Credit: Wikipedia |
Warning: There are spoilers throughout this review.
Our first Book-To-Movie (BTM) of the year reviewed a bad Stephen King short story and its almost equally bad movie adaptation. (In fact, the movie was worse, even if just by a bit.) Today’s BTM is reviewing another bad film but one based on a way better short story by King. The movie is “Maximum Overdrive”; the story it’s based on is “Trucks”. King’s “Trucks” is concisely written with a prophetic warning against the overuse of technology. However, the 1986 movie adaptation, "Maximum Overdrive", which King himself directed, was not much more than shock entertainment.
The Short Story
"Trucks" was originally published in a 1973 issue of the magazine, "Cavalier". It's about a group of people trapped in a truck stop diner that's surrounded by a convoy of killer, driverless big rigs. They’ve learned that motorised vehicles and other machines are reported to be attacking people all over the country. The protagonist, who is not named like many of the other characters, narrates the story and leads the group in their defence against the murderous vehicles.
While the story’s overall structure is clever, it starts in the middle of the horror. It opens with the trucks already surrounding the diner with the people trapped inside. It would have been more suspenseful and creepier if King had led up to the attack more.
What causes the vehicles and other machines to gain wills of their own is not really explained. However, one of the characters, a trucker, suggests that electrical storms and effects of nuclear testing may have been the cause, which gives the story a science-fictional quality. Towards the end, the narrator suggests that the human race gave the motorized vehicles "mass consciousness". However, because there is no precise explanation, the story tends to have a more mysterious, supernatural element that it’s centred around.
The characters were not that well-developed but many, including the narrator, were likeable in their interactions with each other. King omitting the names of most of the characters and, instead, referring to them by type (such as “the trucker”, or the “counterman”) is a device that makes the story convincing. The terrifying circumstance has brought the characters together so suddenly that they don't have time for introductions.
A scene in “Trucks” gives the impression that the story was written in response to the oil crisis of the time. In this scene, a line of driverless vehicles, mostly freight trucks, is described as going all the way to the horizon, which is what gas station lines in the 1970s often looked like. A bull dozer threatens the people inside the diner into pumping gas into the vehicles. After all other efforts, this is the only way that the people can prevent the trucks from killing them. And the trucks keep coming for gas.
The story basically ends in this very pessimistic way. The narrator does offer a glimpse of hope saying that the vehicles, because they can't reproduce themselves like humans, will eventually wear down and die out. But then it occurs to him that the trucks can enslave people in the auto industry, like the way they’ve enslaved the people in the diner into pumping gas, to manufacture more of them.
So, “Trucks” is kind of a doomsday story, but one that holds a warning of what could happen if we become overdependent on motorized vehicles, a kind of analogy for the global warming that motor pollutants were causing at the time and continue doing so today. This warning is a speculation which makes the story science fiction in addition to its supernatural implications.
The Movie
Ironically, when Stephen King introduced his movie, “Maximum Overdrive”, in its trailer, he said that when you want a movie made right, you have to make it yourself. Well, he was far from making it right. There are parts where it looks like he tried, but they don't add up. Even King himself, as stated in Wikipedia, later downgraded the movie and decided never to direct again. This same Wikipedia article says that the movie eventually developed a cult following for it being "so bad it's good". However, I don't even think it's worthy of that status!
The plot to “Overdrive” is basically the same as its source material, “Trucks”, although it’s very loosely based on it. Too loosely based on it. What I mean by that is that, besides changing almost all the characters, who most of are not likeable, King added too many elements that did not support the plot. The comic relief was mostly shock and crude humour and so was not funny but, instead, very annoying. There was one character who provided true comic relief, a squealy newly-wed wife, but even she got annoying overall. The movie was filled with too many moronic characters like her. The newly-wed husband was the most likeable and sympathetic, but he was only a supporting role.
Also, too many scenes are glossed over, such as the comet that causes the vehicles and other machines to turn on humans. The comet is never shown but only mentioned in the overlaid narrational text at the beginning. The closest that we get to seeing it is the green glowing cloud it leaves behind and that envelops the earth, although the special effects for that were done okay. Then when we learn at the end that aliens may have been the cause of the killer vehicles, as with the comet they are not shown; they are only implied in the overlaid narrational text that concludes the movie saying that a UFO was discovered trailing the comet.
“Overdrive” is almost non-stop chaos and so there's really no suspense leading up to the terrifying situations. However, unlike the short story, the beginning doesn't start with the main terror of the trucks threatening attack on the diner but gradually works its way up to it, although it does so fairly quickly.
The acting, overall, was very poor. Starring-actor Emilio Estevez has done way better in his other movies around that time, such as "The Breakfast Club" (which has no genre-relation, by the way). Actor Pat Hingle who plays the human antagonist was overly villainous to the point of unbelievability and so was campy. Also, the foul language was overdone.
Although I’m in no way a heavy metal fan, the AC/DC soundtrack works in some parts of the film. However, many of the tracks’ Satanic lyrics seem to be juxtaposed with adverse Christian themes as a way to attack biblical religion for no apparent reason.
The way that the characters battle off the killer machines in “Overdrive” is a big but unconvincing step further than in the short story. Whereas in “Trucks” the characters cleverly make bombs out of empty catchup bottles, in “Overdrive” they use illegally obtained military weapons. This showed itself as nothing more than a cash-in on the Rambo-/action movie-craze of the movie’s time.
“Overdrive” doesn’t have the sense of warning against overuse of automobiles that the short story does. However, when the humans finally escape from the killer trucks, they flee to a nearby island knowing that motorized vehicles are not allowed there. The island’s name is Haven, probably punned for “Heaven”, which is ironic due to the soundtrack’s Satanic lyrics mentioned above.
If either Stephen King’s short story, "Trucks", or his movie adaptation of it, "Maximum Overdrive", were made today in the same sense they were in their own times, they probably wouldn't be as creepy because we’re now so familiar with robo cars. (Although those are creepy within themselves.) But both still set up the story to make the killer vehicles terrifying especially by putting the characters in a seemingly inescapable predicament. However, Stephen King does a much better job of it as a short story writer than as a director. In the short story, he gives us minimal details that give an effect of impacting terror. However, in the movie he puts in too many details that, even though it gives the effect of terror, is ruined by the needless crude, shocking humour and chaos that runs throughout. I think King made a wise decision in recognising his own mistake and sticking to writing prose fiction. And that’s not sarcasm.
‘Bad Apps’ Update
I’ve been colouring in the concept sketch of the illustration for the book cover to “Bad Apps”. I’ve also been looking at different artists’ work online to decide who to hire to make the full illustration. I’ve said before that I don’t like digital art, but since the theme of “Bad Apps” is digital technology, I’m going to need an artist who can make an obvious digital illustration (as opposed to a digital illustration that’s made to look handmade).
I’ll be showing the completed concept sketch in my upcoming newsletter, “Night Creatures’ Call”. I’m not sure when I’ll be sharing it here at the Far Out Fantastic Site or in any of my social media venues. So, if you want to be the first to see it, subscribe to the newsletter. It’s free! I’m going to try to release the newsletter in the next week or so.
Be here this Wednesday for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop! Have you read Stephen King’s short story, “Trucks” (which can be found in his collection, “Night Shift”), or seen its movie adaptation, “Maximum Overdrive”?
Until next time . . .
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| Credit: Pixabay |
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