Maximum Overdrive is the single director credit for legendary writer Stephen King and is based on his short story Trucks. The action takes place at a truck stop inhabited by a motley crew of truck drivers, ex-con employees, and their sketchy boss. As things progress we add a bible salesman, a hitchhiker, and some newlyweds to the mix. They all must deal with machines coming to life with homicide on their minds. Soda machines, ATMs, lawnmowers, construction equipment, small planes, electric knives, video games, and yes big eighteen wheelers (aka. semi-trucks) go on the attack. The rest of the plot is our characters dodging the threats, arguing with each other, and eventually planning an escape to an island where there aren’t any roads or vehicles. People live and people die, some in awesome ways!
This movie is a prime example of my philosophy of “not everything has to be art”. This story is very simple and to the point. There is a crawl at the beginning talking about an asteroid and radiation followed by a character talking about how it would be a good plan if you wanted to invade to “clean house”. This is followed up by another crawl talking about how a Russian weather satellite, which was armed with lasers and nukes, destroyed a UFO. I guess we are supposed to believe that this was some alien invasion, but none of that really matters. What does matter is we meet a bunch of likeable characters and watch them get picked off in horrible ways. King as director and writer executes this perfectly and it results in an entertaining experience.
There is a decent amount of gore as the machinery goes wild. A waitress has an electric knife tear into her arm, a soda can dents in a man’s head in a gruesome way, people are gunned down with an overabundance of bullet hits, several people are sent flying by trucks, and we see a kid get run over by a steam roller! That last one is my favorite. What I have the most fun with is how creative they had to get with the kills. This isn’t as simple as a zombie or slasher going after someone. Nope they had to find creative ways to put the characters in harms way so that the, sometimes immobile, machines can kill. That goes back to the script and writing, which of course is great as it is Stephen King after all.
The cast is filled with lots of character actors that are good at their jobs and bring the characters to the screen. Pat Hingle, Yeardley Smith, and Leon Rippy are probably the most recognizable and best. The lead is Emilio Estevez who Hollywood tried to make into a leading man/action hero but is best in quirky projects like Maximum Overdrive. Everyone seems to be having fun and there is some scenery chewing, I’m looking at you Pat Hingle, but it all works.
In the end this is the sort of movie that you shut your brain off for ninety minutes and enjoy. Don’t over think it and have fun with rocket launchers blowing stuff up, and cars running people over. Embrace the nutty chaos and you will have fun. If you think that you are able to do this then grab a copy and get to watching.
It is strange that I’ve been at Crappy Movie Reviews for over three years now and I haven’t gotten around to review The Mist. From the first time that I saw it in the theater, which was frigid since the heat was broken, I’ve always liked this movie. The whole siege in a grocery store was a fun gag and that ending… damn. But I don’t want to spoil things so if The Mist is new to you stop reading this review and go check it out. Spoilers will be flowing freely from here on out. You have been warned.
Thomas Jane plays David Drayton, an artist living in Maine. The movie kicks off with a big storm that drops trees and cuts the power. David grabs his son and heads off to town for supplies leaving his wife at home to watch things. Tagging along is his neighbor Brent who isn’t terribly friendly but has a smashed car to deal with. The three head to town and end up at a grocery store. While waiting in line a strange fog or mist rolls into town, the same one his wife had noticed rolling across the lake towards their house before he left. Another local named Dan comes running up bloody screaming that there is something in the mist and they lock the doors.
Are you hooked yet? The rest of the movie is them discovering that yes there are dangerous and strange creatures in the mist that want nothing more than to make a meal out of them. This includes a mysterious tentacle monster, giant bugs, and spiders that spit an acidic web. As if fighting them weren’t enough to deal with in the store people start to crack and suddenly the local loony, Mrs. Carmody, and her rantings about judgement day begin making sense. This leaves us with David, his son, and a small group of survivors having to make the choice of what is more dangerous. The monsters in the mist or the people in the store.
I’m a huge fan of the short story/novella that this movie is based on. Normally Kings work has had issues being transferred to the big screen, so I was initially worried if they were going to be able to capture what made the story so great. Not only did writer/director Frank Darabont do a fantastic job, but the one massive change he makes gives the movie an emotional gut punch that lingers with you long after the movie is over. I’ll talk more about that later in the review.
The characters are written and portrayed in a manner which has you rooting for or against them. Jane is excellent as David Drayton with Andrew Braugher holding his own as the angry neighbor Brent Norton. Though just like in the story Norton makes a decision early on that shall we say removes him from the equation. He leads a group of survivors out into the mist sure that nothing is there. Well, you know how that probably ended for them. Toby Jones and William Sadler are also excellent in supporting roles. But really the best performance is from Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody. She manages to be as scary if not scarier than the actual monsters! Finally, if you didn’t know Darabont was also responsible for season one of The Walking Dead so we get a lot of familiar faces here including Jeffrey DeMunn, Laurie Holden, and Melissa McBride.
So, we have a good adaptation of a bad ass story filled with characters we can root for. These are all great things and makes it much more suspenseful when they are put in danger. This is what the best horror movies do but that isn’t enough for Darabont. He follows thru with an ending that the story only hints at. Drayton, his son, and three others successfully make it out of the store and start driving south hoping to get out of the mist. They eventually run out of gas and we get a stomach twisting scene with no dialogue where he pulls out a gun and counts the bullets. He only has four. Saying he will figure something out and with the tacit agreement of the group he does the unthinkable. He shoots everyone including his young son. Then steps out of the truck and yells for the creatures to take him. There is a loud grumbling sound, and it looks like his wishes will be answered. Only the sound turns out to be a tank and the army is there collecting survivors and killing the monsters. This all happens seconds after he kills everyone. Holy shit did the movie get dark.
This ending is a kick in the butt!
The creatures in the movie are brought to the screen with CGI. Given how otherworldly they are supposed to be I’m okay with that. Plus, the CGI is well done. We get spiders, wasps from hell, tentacles, weird flying lizard creatures that appear to eat the wasps, and finally a giant-sized horror that stomps across their path as they are traveling. Seriously this is a Kaiju sized beast. While the creatures are great there isn’t much in the way of gore. We get some stuff after the fact like the lower half of a guy with some intestines, a few gnarly desiccated bodies from the spiders, and a guy who was used as a hatchery for the spiders. Not bad for a Hollywood flick but I’ve seen much bloodier monster movies.
Between the story, characters, monsters, and that damn ending The Mist gets a huge recommendation from me. This is a great movie and one of the best monster movies that I’ve ever seen. Considering how many I watch that is saying something. If you have read this far, ignored my spoiler warning, and still haven’t watched this one you need to right away. Too many times fans like to assign classic to a newer movie. Here in my opinion, I think it applies. Check it out!
The October
movie reviews keep rolling along. Since I just got done with a series of demonic
possession movie reviews, I thought it would be fun to check out another staple
of the genre, anthologies! I thought I’d start off with one inspired by Stephen
King stories featuring an original script from the master himself! Two of the
stories, Quitters Inc. and The Ledge are adapted from short stories from King’s
short story collection Night Shift. The last story connects all three together
and was an original written by King for the movie.
Before I
continue let me warn you there will be spoilers.
But this movie is more than thirty years old, so I don’t feel that bad about
it. If you want to skip the spoilers, I’ll let you know that I’m going to
recommend this movie. It is a lot of fun! Now let’s get back to the good stuff.
Things
start off with a cat running around Wilmington North Carolina. It gets chased
by a strangely familiar St. Bernard and almost gets hit by a classic car that I
also remember from somewhere! The cat eventually hitches a ride on a truck and
ends up in New York City. There it is picked up and taken to an office to be
used as an example of how effective an electrified floor can be in causing
pain. Welcome to Quitters Inc.
James
Woods plays a man named Dick who really wants to stop smoking. On the advice of
a friend he signs up with a company called Quitters Inc. who promises to get
results. What he doesn’t realize is that the company was founded by the mob
after one of their leaders died of lung cancer. The results they achieve come
from techniques developed in their other lines of business. Dick is shown the
cat jumping around the electrified floor and told if he smokes again it will be
his wife in the room. Then his daughter and then they will give up on him (said
while showing a gun)! He does fall of the wagon, which sucks for his wife, but
then we see that he has successfully kicked the habit. Now about his weight…
James Woods is great in the movie
Woods is
great as Dick. He is basically playing himself, but he does that very well.
There is a party scene where he hallucinates everyone smoking including from
their ears while cigarette packs dance around the room. Alan King is Dr. Vinny
and is very menacing in his role as a helpful mobster that will help Dick kick
the habit not matter who gets hurt along the way! This is a solid segment and
took what was one of my least favorite stores from Night Shift and made it
entertaining. Look for Drew Barrymore in a small role as Dick’s daughter. She
is a recurring theme along with the cat.
The cat
escapes the offices of Quitters Inc. and makes its way across the river into
New Jersey. There it ends up with a mobster named Cressner. He is a gambler who
has a problem with his wife. See she has a boyfriend, a former Tennis pro named
Johnny. Cressner catches Johnny before he leaves town and makes him a friendly
wager. If he can navigate the ledge around his penthouse apartment without
falling to his death, then he will be given a bag full of money and allowed to
leave with her. Otherwise bad things will happen. And so, The Ledge segment of
Cat’s Eye starts.
Johnny
doesn’t have much choice, so he climbs out on the ledge and starts scooting
around the building. Cressner doesn’t play fair and takes every opportunity to
make him slip. From loud horns startling him to a water hose the guy never lets
up. There is even an annoying pigeon that pecks at his ankles. But against the
odds Johnny makes his way around the building and climbs back up into the
penthouse. Cressner is a man of his word and has the bag of money waiting. As
he promised he can also leave town with his wife. Though he never promised that
she would be alive! A fight ensues, the cat makes it’s escape, and Johnny gets
the gun away from the mobster and his man. Not being an unreasonable guy, he
offers Cressner a small wager. Make it around the building and he won’t shoot
him!
I have a
fear of heights, so The Ledge has always freaked me out. Just the idea of it
causes chills to run down my spine. But on this viewing, I have to say that the
special effects work doesn’t hold up well. The green screen shots of things
falling and showing how high up they are looks fake. This is one of the few
times that I think today’s technology could have pulled off the story much
better. Still I like Robert Hays as Johnny. He does fear and anger very well as
an actor who I think is much better known for his comedic roles. Despite my
issues with badly aging special effects I still like The Ledge. Look for Drew
Barrymore in a commercial.
The creature design holds up in this one
The
General is the final segment and the only original one written for the movie.
It features Drew Barrymore as a girl named Amanda. She is in danger from a
Troll that is trying to sneak into her room at night and steal her breath/kill
her. The story takes place in Wilmington where the movie started and where the
cat has hitched a train back to. The cat, now named General by Amanda, knows
about the Troll and is determined to protect her.
Of course,
Amanda’s parents don’t believe in her stories. In fact, when the Troll sneaks
in and kills the family’s pet bird it does so to frame the cat. The General is
sent off to the pound to be destroyed, but when they bring him his last meal,
he makes a break for it. He arrives back at the house just in time to do battle
with the Troll and eventually tosses it into a box fan making Troll puree. Her
parents hear the racket and see what is left of the evil little creature and
realize some weird stuff was going down.
The
highlight of this segment is the Troll. In the other two stories the “monster”
was a person or people. Here we get an actual evil creature portrayed by an
actor in a suit. I’m a sucker for this and the creature design looks great.
They also do an amazing job of creating oversized sets since the creature is
maybe eight or nine inches tall. Between those sets and blending shots of the
Troll and full-size cast/environment it has a fun old school feel to it. Think
the Incredible Shrinking Man, only this time the cat is the hero.
This is an
excellent movie that I recommend without exception. Sometimes King Adaptations
can be a mixed bag, but with Cat’s Eye you have nothing to worry about.
Time for
some old school Stephen King fun. Here we have a movie that is based off one of
his short stories from my favorite book, Night Shift, and features some rats.
It is surprisingly decent and expands the short story into a feature length
flick much better than I thought it would.
Our main
character is John, a drifter looking for work. He takes the night shift, aka.
the graveyard shift at a textile mill running a large machine. Even at that
time of night it gets very hot and the place is infested with rats. Plus, John
is replacing a man who died under some mysterious circumstances. The man who
runs the mill, Warwick, is ordered to clean the place up and get rid of the
rats or risk being shut down. He offers overtime for a few special workers over
the fourth of July holiday if they will clean out the basement. John gets
tossed into that mix as a “reward” for stopping Warwick from beating on his
girlfriend to a pulp in front of the town.
Clearly
things are going to go sideways, it is a King story after all. It seems that
the mill has a huge nest of rats living under it. Including one large one that is
mutated beyond imagination. That is what happens when you have critters feasting
on the bodies from the cemetery next door and that have developed a taste for
people. This doesn’t bode well for the graveyard shift cleaning out the
basement. Things get really ugly really quick.
For the
most part this is a fun movie. The characters are well written and while
predictable are still enjoyable to watch. Stephen Macht does a great job as
Warwick, the bully of a boss that thinks he owns those that work for him. You
either work for his mill or you don’t have a job! He uses this to bed many of
the women who he employs. Not a nice guy that meets a satisfying end, though
not before getting one final bit of nastiness in. Brad Dourif plays a minor
character called the Exterminator. He basically pops in and out of the movie to
talk about rats, Vietnam, and drop a few one-liners here and there. Seriously
this guy is awesome in everything, including Graveyard Shift. I was bummed that
his character meets such a lame end.Other than a pre Wishmaster Andrew Divoff there isn’t much else to say
about the cast.
The cast is cool. Needed more Dourif!
The movie
is paced decently, though there is a bit of a pause in the action between the
first kill and when things really get rolling. We get some character
development which makes what happens later more interesting. But it does drag
just a bit. Again, I was impressed that they managed to make a feature length
movie out of the short story. Much of the slow spot is the filler added in to
get the proper runtime.
There is
one thing that really disappoints me about Graveyard Shift. They miss out on
tossing gore at the viewer. We do get on arm getting gnawed off (really dude
you stuck your arm in the freaky hole in the wall?) but that’s about it. We get
a lot of deaths by rats, both normal and supersized, but most of it happens
just off screen and we are only treated to sounds and some blood dripping on
screen. The creature design was decent, so I know that they could have done
some more work with the gore, but don’t. I love me some blood and guts, so this
was disappointing.
I hadn’t
seen Graveyard Shift in many years, but I remembered liking it. I think that I
still do, but I can see why it hasn’t ever been a movie that I have a desire to
watch over and over again. Now had they tossed some decent gore in I’d be down
for watching it every October in my Halloween marathon. As it is I’ll probably
not watch it again for another ten years. Cool in some ways, but very
disappointing in others.
