YMMV / Maximum Overdrive

• Accidental Aesop: The behind-the-scenes anecdotes seem to have this lesson: "Don't do a major-budget production while hopped up on cocaine." Stephen King will freely admit that this was his biggest "stinker" because no one was willing to tell him his ideas were stupid and he was drugged for most of the time.
• Angst? What Angst?: Deke sure seems pretty neutral about hearing that his father was run down by an evil truck.
• Awesome Music: King somehow got AC/DC of all people to do the soundtrack, so you knew there just had to be some great songs in this movie, but "Who Made Who" stands out as the one of the three sole original songs in the soundtrack.
• Crazy Is Cool: Bubba Hendershot, an over-the-top redneck and Good Old Boy who has a freaking cache of weapons in the basement of his truck stop, including a ROCKET LAUNCHER.
• Cult Classic: Thanks to its silly premise and a rocking soundtrack by AC/DC, this movie has its fans. (Not to mention a lack of other "machines take over" movies to pick from.)
• Ham and Cheese: The actress playing Wanda is clearly having the most fun with her role.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The trailer for the movie has Stephen King say things like "If you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself" or "I just wanted someone to do Stephen King right". ^note One of the reasons why Stephen King directed the movie was because he famously didn't like the movie adaptation of The Shining. With the movie itself being a critical and commercial flop, it seems even Stephen King can't do Stephen King right.
  • Add in the fact that big screen adaptations of Misery, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and IT, which all came out after this movie, have all been critically acclaimed, and King's remarks become even funnier in hindsight.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some Hard Rock fans find the film is only worth watching for AC/DC's epic soundtrack.
• Narm:
  • Almost too much to count. The scene where the guy gets electrocuted by the arcade machine, as well as the waitress's mental break down ("WE - MADE - YOU!!!") stand out.
  • The main Green Goblin truck is just too stupid-looking and on the nose to be scary.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The waitress's mental breakdown.
  • The scene where the steamroller runs over the kid.
  • THIS MACHINE JUST CALLED ME AN ASSHOLE.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: This was King's belief, which was invoked in his trailer for the film. However, looking back on the film, he no longer believes this, as he admits that the film wasn't good.
  "Mr. King has officially renounced all rights to complain about what hack filmmakers do to his writings henceforth, because he has proven he can trash them up there with the worst of them. In fact, I imagine other popular authors like Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Michael Crichton, etc., must loathe King now. I can just picture an author arguing with some bean counter over a creative issue. The author says “We’ve got to do it this way. I’m the author, I know what works about my story!” To which the bean counter smugly replies “Oh yes? Just like Stephen King and Maximum Overdrive?”"
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Giancarlo Esposito as a videoplayer who gets killed by an arcade game.
  • Also in the film is Yeardley Smith, who would later gain worldwide fame as the voice of Lisa Simpson.
• The Scrappy: Connie. Nobody can stand her constant screaming and whining.
• So Bad, It's Good: Stephen King himself making a movie based on his works? What could go wrong? Cocaine, mostly.
• Special Effects Failure: Quite a few (a probable side effect of the cocaine), the most noticeable include:
  • The wheels on the Lawnmower that attacks are not flat on the ground, giving away the illusion that its not remotely controlled (it was also responsible for giving the cameraman an injury to his eye).
  • The soda machine has visible tubes that hurl the pop cans out.
  • The stove top that the waitresses' elbow gets burned isn't turned on.
  • The ice cream truck that landed on its roof (a malfunctioning stunt that almost killed another cameraman).
  • The Mack truck that chases the newlyweds has different pedals between two scenes.
  • The matte painting of Earth at the beginning is reversed.
  • The stunt driver of the beer truck can be seen when it rams Curt and Connie's car. Later, the Ice Cream Truck's driver is visible just before its blown up.
  • One of the soda machine's victims doesn't die right away.
  • The Mack Truck explodes before going over the cliff.
  • When Hendershot uses the rocket launcher, no rockets are shown being fired.
  • In a behind-the-scenes example around the trucks. The radio-controlled versions (which were full-size) would usually break down during filming the Dixie Boy destruction, delaying filming. And when a truck was fixed, another one would break shortly after.
  • This was the reason for the infamous deleted shot that allegedly made George A. Romero throw up. The dummy was built to release its blood packs as the steamroller passed over it and the blood was supposed to simply smear across the roller, but instead the blood packs all pooled up at the dummy's head and burst all at once, resulting in a shot that was deemed too overly gory for the finished film.
  • The shots of bullets being fired at the trucks. When done on the Bad Humor Truck by Curtis and the Happy Toyz truck before Bill fires the rocket, it looks as if fireflies are attacking the vehicles.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Wanda June gets gunned down by the turret later in the film, to the enjoyment of all who were annoyed by her ranting.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: King was infamously on a nonstop cocaine bender while shooting.
• Woolseyism: The Latin American Spanish dub is a quite curious case regarding this, and also overlaps with Bowdlerise of sorts: The This machine just called me an asshole! line is replaced with ¡Esta maquina me llamó un asno! (This machine just called me a donkey/ass!). Fridge Brilliance is applied here: "Asno" (donkey) is used in Mexico and other Latin American countries as a synonym for "idiot" or "moron", and that without going into the point that, in British English, a "donkey" is also called as "ass" in the U.K. It also helps a lot that "asno" sounds phonetically similar to "asshole" if you pronounce the word quickly enough.

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