in a world where big rigs run the show. How? Will a ragtag team of people with no peripheral vision survive? We're asking the question, who made who?
Today on Kingme, Maximum Overdrive. Oh my god. It was so hard for me to get that whole sentence out. Yeah, you...
Ugh. Ugh. You just ate a really big meal. Yep, and which is something that we do all the time on this show.
Yeah, but I ate a big meal knowing that you were ordering a big meal. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.
What have you ever... What if I didn't come through with that big meal? What... Where would you have gotten your big meal from?
The future is always uncertain. You have to live in the now. And that's what I did. Yes.
Well, great. I think this is the perfect condition for us to be in when recording podcasts. Way too full and just unprepared. And it's especially good because these microphones are so sensitive that you can hear me breathing between words.
Right. Breathing Chinese food all over them. Nice. This is Christ.
How are you? I'm good. I'm Rob Avon. Oh right, I'm Dan.
Gagliardi. As you said in the intro, this week we were talking about... As I breathed in the intro. As you huffed and puffed.
Wake on cake. Wake on cake. Bro. I'm too fat to be loved.
It's true. Oh. Yeah. Maximum Overdrive 1986.
Directed by Stephen King. And now we have to end the episode. The end. Ancient goblins.
And also by... And Steamboats. Is that the next line? Is it?
No. It could be. It could be. Right.
Stephen King. Right. Screenplay pie. Stephen King.
Written for the screen by Stephen King. Starring. You know, he's that big heavy... Stephen King.
Well, he hitchcocks himself into it, doesn't he? Right in that first scene. I think he's got the first line, right? Yeah.
Honey. Honey, this machine just called me an asshole. He's doing his best Christopher Walken impression in the movie. Honey.
Yeah. Stephen King, not my favorite actor. No, he's... You know what he is actually my favorite.
Oh man. Speak on that. Yeah. Starring and Heavy Quotation Marks, Emilio Estves.
Ah, yes. I'm really young. Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington. Pat Hingle is the closest thing to an actor in this movie.
Yeah. Henderson. What's Henderson? Henderson's the some bitch guy who's always smoking cigars.
The guy with a rocket launcher. Oh, no, I know who he is. Oh, that's his name. That's his name is Henderson.
He's the only guy whose name I know. And I'm looking at the IMDB page. Yeah, I just know them as their caricatures really. Like, you know, just out of old old time waitress.
Like gross stuff waitress. Who stole this whole movie? Oh my God. You might as well come, I mean, be upfront about the fact that...
Oh, God. We have to be upfront about the fact that you are dying. I'm dying. This will be my last step.
I was going to say that we know that there's a How To This Get Made episode about this movie. We know, but we're slaves to form. Yeah, we can't skip over it just because somebody else did it. Yeah.
Somebody, you know, more probably more popular. Probably. I've never heard of them. I don't know.
What? I think it's fine. I mean, yeah. Listen, if you're coming to us because you heard that there was a podcast about this movie, but you couldn't remember the name.
And for some reason you jumped at page 12 of the search results. Welcome, I guess. Yeah, in case you were looking up a podcast about maximum overdrive. Yeah.
And the first thing you heard was me burping. And if you're still with us, welcome. Frankly, we don't want you listening. If that's the kind of person you are, you hear a gross man burp and you're like, I'm in.
I won't be part of any club that will have his number. You're at least Smith. Also starring at you're at least Smith. Dame, you're at least Smith.
She was just the worst in this movie. Holy. But she, her character was just, I don't usually do themes at the end, but I just want to throw this up. You want to talk about how the, well, Stephen King, how he hates women.
Okay. How the women in this movie are only. Stretching digrags? Yeah.
Stretching dish rags. Only. Yes. Except for like the main character girl.
But she's just like a, but she's just a sexual cheerleader. That's it. Yeah. That's all she's there for.
Just to be like, you're the hero of things she keeps saying. Holy shit. She keeps insisting that Emilio Estavez is the hero of this movie. He even fucks like a hero.
He says so. Yeah. All right. All right.
Well, okay. In case you've never seen this movie, if you're just coming to it because you know one of us personally, Jacqueline, DJ, Kelly. Hi guys. Hey, here's, here's the setup of this movie.
I'm going to do my best because it's not totally clear. At any point, what's happening? A comet passes over mother Gaia Earth herself. And while Earth is in the tail of that comet, the, for some reason there are properties to that comet that give all not all some machines on Earth, the gift of sentience, but it's not.
It's so unclear about what those machines need to be like their trucks, right? Yeah. All over the place their trucks. So you're like, well, there's electronics, there's gasoline that runs them.
There's like, there's a central sort of nervous system to the truck. Yeah. Right. And then later on, there's like a truck with a machine gun mounted on it.
And that machine gun itself is also like sentient. Yes. But none of the machine guns that the people use to fight the trucks are sentient. Right.
And they're not sentient. Right. Rocket launcher is not. Yeah.
Oh my God. I only call it rocket launcher is busy. I was actually like, is it a busy or a rocket launcher? Are they two different things?
I don't want to. Is it like a Panther and a Leppard, how they're the same, but no one knows. Yeah. It's very confusing.
Vending machines, video games. Yeah, it's crazy. Like the rules are they try, they lay them out like in the first, there's like two paragraphs in the opening, like there's an opening crawl basically to this. And they kind of lay out the rules, but then they just fucking shoot from the hip.
I feel like the rest of the movie. Very much so. Yeah. Because none of the, okay, so the first scene of the movie basically is that scene on the bridge, right?
The bridge going up. Yeah. After Stephen King goes to the ATM machine and it calls him an asshole, which is, let me just say very funny. Oh man.
There's a scene where there's like, you know, just a bridge, a draw bridge. Yeah. And it just starts going up of its own volition. And nobody moves.
Nobody moves. But also none of the cars on the bridge run the show. Yeah. None of those cars do anything.
Yeah. Not even the conspicuously placed ACDC van. Oh, by the way. This movie, the entire soundtrack is by ACDC.
That was something that Stephen King, he picked out the band himself. I know. I didn't know, but I figured he was like, they would be, it's a movie called Maximum Overdrive. We need a rock band.
We need them to rock. ACDC scoring a horror movie. That goes to those two things go together like peanut butter and jelly or U2 and a musical about spike. They all go together equally well.
Yeah. So yeah, we get that scene on the bridge and how cool would have been if like the cars just started like peeling out and like flying over like the bridge into the just pouring into the cars force themselves forward. Yeah. That would have been pretty cool.
They just like crashing onto each other in the water. The cars also seem to have like some concept of mortality. They don't want to die. Right.
It's like almost like Pixar's cars. But like like cars, I feel like it's the sequel to Maximum Overdrive. Yeah. There is like a very, I couldn't help noticing that there was a rickety old tow truck.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
So, all right. So now that we got that cleared up, same universe, same universe we're working with. So we get that scene. No, I don't think anybody dies there though.
Now where we get our first kill. It's unclear. Is it? Well, who are you saying?
The guy that falls into from the truck. That guy penciled pencil, pencil, dived into the water. He was totally fine. The guy went off the bridge.
Yeah. He was fine. Okay. I could have sworn someone for sure died.
Didn't someone like crash through a windshield like fall in through windshield or something? One lady almost got crushed by a watermelon. Yeah. There were watermelons just flying about so weird and slap sticky.
I don't know. That's more of that bullshit king humor. He loves it. There this movie is so chock full of his weird linguistic choices.
Oh, it's like this is this is this is what happens. This is his opus. Yeah. This is what happens when you give the reins over to Stephen King on cocaine on cocaine.
So much caffeine. Did you notice that Emilio Estebes was essentially a sweaty puffy bag of cocaine? He looked like dog shit. This is 1986.
That is primo Stavez. He should not have looked that bad. Which I also point out. This is Martin Sheen's son.
Martin Sheen has been into other king movies. That's right. And now the torch has been passed. Exactly.
Son, you have to do this. I'm out. I'm tagging you in. Yeah.
For a second, I felt one of the townings was Charlie Sheen. Oh, man. I was wrong. I wish that was true.
So we get that scene on the bridge. I don't. There were people falling around. I think somebody did go like fall through some glass.
Yeah. But no, I guess that doesn't guarantee anything. No, nobody, no death. Although, I don't know, if you fall through a windshield, which is tempered glass, you got to be falling pretty hard.
Yeah, but I don't know. People survive. You know, just because you go through. That's what people do.
That's what makes this human race. As we saw in the movie maximum overdrive, people survive. Right. So, yeah, it's just sailboats.
Right. Apparently, during that scene, one of the boats passing by had members of ACDC on it. What? Yeah.
Wait, in the bridge chain or the end? The bridge scene. Why? Because by coincidence, they were just passing.
They happened to be on their boat. Hey, look, there's a van with our name on it. Let's go say hi. Shoot in a movie.
You want us to do the music for it? Actually they didn't record anything for this movie. They were just playing on the boat and they were like, roll it. We can use this.
They're just like always on a speed boat. It's like Miami vise. It's basically the aquatic version of Mad Max. Yeah.
The new Mad Max. Right. So, after that, what happens? Well, no, the next scene is at the diner.
Yeah. Right. When she cuts her hands. Yeah, so, right, we get that scene.
We sort of get a sense now. So, we got Estebes. We know he's going to be the star. Okay, these are our people now.
We start meeting some of the characters. Estebes has got a shitbag boss who doesn't give a fuck about anybody. Yeah. Like he's just about all about that money.
Yeah, he's threatening to lie to Estebes' parole officer and say that he broke his parole. Right. If he doesn't work more hours than he's being paid to. Nine hours instead of eight.
Which is... It's not a knife. Yeah. Yeah.
It's some nitpicky hair-splitting bullshit. Yeah, it's not like, you know, I'm not going to pay you at all. Yeah. Which would have been like a shitbag thing.
It's like, hey, I'm going to keep $8 before taxes. Right? All right, man. If you need that $8, just say...
Miggle and diamond, everybody. That's a tender shot, by the way. That's a tender shot. That's a tender shot for you.
And then we get the waitress. And the... Don't forget the racist caricature of a black guy. Oh, played by Gus from Breaking Bad?
No, was that him? Yeah. Saying, yo mama, the one who got... I thought he was our first kill.
I did not realize that was Gus. That's who we're talking about. John Carlo Esposito? Yeah.
That's Gus. Really? Yup. I did not even notice that.
John Carlo Esposito as video game player. Even that's racist. Not really. It's racist that I thought that.
Basically, though, to be fair. No, it was racist. It's pretty racist. He gets super excited when the cigarette machine starts spitting out cigarettes.
And all the machines start spitting out cortisol. And he's like, hachi machi. I'm going to line my jacket with coins and cigarettes. It was like a minstrel show or something.
It was like that one old Looney Tunes cartoon that you can't watch anymore. You know how there are like seven Looney Tunes that are two racist for anyone? They lost them away somewhere. Not that they got rid of them.
Yeah, they just like put them away. We got to say, yeah. Until the clouds break. I mean, don't get rid of them.
What if we need them again? What if they come back into fat? I don't want to have to redraw this stuff. And further we get into this selection season.
Yeah. I don't want to pull in. We'll be seeing those cartoons soon. Basically, there's one where the racist caricature of a black guy dies.
And instead of going to heaven, he goes to Perodice where everyone gambles and plays dice. Oh, fuck. And that fucked up. All right.
So this is, yeah. Anyway, this is that kind of movie. Yeah, it's the kind of movie where your brain can get from this movie to racist Looney Tunes in one move. Right.
I can't believe that John Carlos Bazzito is like he would go on to be in fucking Spike Lee movies. Yeah, the opposite. Yeah, I think only this is 86. So in like three or four years, he's going to be in do the right thing, which is.
Which in this movie, he did not. Right. I can't even imagine how just angry he must have been the whole one day he was on set. Right.
When Stephen King, like too cold came out of his fucking mind. His whole eyes are just black. It's just his pupils. That's all you see.
He's like, that was good. But say your mom this time, but really like go for it. You know, like you do. Right.
Stephen King seems like he's racially sensitive. In the 80s. Yeah, in the 80s. That's been a real, yeah.
Is this the first episode we recorded since the Dark Tower was announced or did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all pretty excited over here about the Dark Tower movie that's coming out. I actually am pretty excited.
I am actually really excited too. I think Inja Selba and Matthew McConaughey. It's a great pairing. Yes.
Fuck, that's going to be great. But I think we talked about Howard directing. Oh, is he? I know he was on board for a while.
I don't necessarily want Ron Howard to direct it. What? I don't know. I want someone a little more exciting.
Ron Howard directs. Roland is played by Tom Hanks. The man in black is played by Sally Field. Yes.
I know you've never read the books, but do you know about the character Susanna? No. Oh, wait. Yes, I do.
The paraplegic black woman who starts off as a racist caricature because she got hit in the head with a brick. Yeah. I love it. It's not Ron Howard.
It's Howard Ron. Nikolai Arcel. I think those names were wrong. What did he do?
He wrote. What's he done that's so great. Yeah, what are you all about? He directed some things.
He wrote the screenplay for the Girl to Dragon tattoo, the Swedish version. Ooh, so he's real hot shit. Yeah, he's from Denmark. So but that's not coming on till two shout out to Denmark.
2017. So by the time that comes, we should be lining up by the time that comes out, we'll be on Children of the Corn too. God willing. And the creek don't rise.
Anyway, so okay, this movie sucks. This movie sucks. But we get to our first kill, right? Which is Jean-Carlo Esposito as video game player.
I don't have any music or anything cute up. The one you pull this up for? I mean, I have a sound for first kill. I mean, I think the first kill is probably the scariest, you know, because it's the first one that happens.
So I'm going to make lemonade in your pants. Okay, it's a thin, thin logic. Shucky dog. Fair enough.
Are you just going to keep shutting me down with sound clips? Nope, all right. Okay, this is just how I talk for this. I have to keep setting you up for those clips.
Well, I've got these lemons and the sugar in this water, but no picture. Are you going to make lemonade in your pants? I guess I could. I don't want to drink it all myself.
I guess I could give some to my friend Lloyd, who's here with us. Have you met Lloyd? Lloyd. Yeah.
It was very stupid. Yeah. A little slow tonight, isn't it? I forgot about that one.
Yeah, that one's going to be good. That one's going to fill a lot of airtime. All right. Yeah, so it's our first kill.
Yes, he dies racously. He gets electrocuted by a video game. Wait, he starts, the video game starts like just doing like this sort of weird. It's all the symbols that are on like telepathy cards.
Yeah, like wavy lines, all that. That's seen in Ghostbusters. Right. I was watching that and it popped like 2001 space as he popped into my head.
Yeah. Just like the line, my God, it's full of stars. You can shoot off in a lot of different directions from this movie. So he dies.
And then the solution to a dead guy in the. Yeah, Hendry shot. Hendry shot. It's just like throw him in the basement.
Put him on a pile. Well, I guess start a body pile. Jesus. It's like he knows that more people are going to die.
Yeah. He is not concerned at all. No, he's even like, even once the circumstances become clear, I feel like he's not concerned. Right.
And the moment he becomes very concerned and procures his bazooka. That was very stupid. That was so dumb. But the next scene is every scene I feel like just gets worse and worse.
The next scene is the little league game where this little boy is playing little league, all these kids, whatever. And then the coach is like, all right, so does for everyone. And in classic Stephen King humor, the guy walks over to his own. He's hitting the nuts twice, two times.
You know what's funnier than getting hit the nuts one time? One for each test. That's it. That's a little bit more statistical.
He's like, oh, that hurt, but I still have half of my strength. Nope, I'm down. And then he gets just beamed in the head and like it leaves this huge like can't bottom of a can shave dent in his head. Yeah, which kills him.
Yeah, right. And then all the old kids scatter, but then a steam roller comes and runs over a child. And I was upset. Yeah, I think that kid makes the immemorial.
Yeah, he's he'll he'll be there. Lot of people in the immemorial. Most of them. Like most of them don't like.
Without a speaking role that dies. Even I would argue that the diner winch didn't have to die. Waitress? Yeah.
I don't know about that. I mean, I feel like you're at least never deserved to die. Yeah, if I had to pick. Sacrifice one to save the other.
Yeah. Yeah. Apparently during that steam roller scene, Stephen King told a special effects guy to like make it really bloody. And they had this bag set up of blood.
So when it rolled over it, it popped and went like everywhere. And then the steam roller like that just rolled paint basically down the field. And the studio was like, that's way too much. We can't do that.
Just kill the kid and his head explode. No, no, no, no, no. So he had to change it. I hate that there was I find it hard to believe that there was even one voice of reason involved with the production.
It had to be something to do with like a panel of people, you know, just a panel of little league players. Oh, no. And steam roller operators. Yeah.
That's not a real job. Then we get back to our diner though. And this is very basically we're going to stay the whole fucking movie. Great.
I feel like this is the beginning of a king trope. Yeah, the bottle episode. Yeah. Like the bottle movie.
Yes. I wrote that down. Langoliers, Langoliers, The Miss. That's another bottle episode, bottle movie, whatever.
Koojo was one. Right. Yeah. Like there's people being stuck, but there's always like, there's always like a very like the group of people is so varied.
Yeah. Like it's like a photo in a math textbook. Yeah. It's like one of each kind of person.
Yeah, it's really strange. It's like a rabbi and astronaut. And there's always one guy who's like, who's an asshole no matter what. The world is ending.
And he was like, well, I don't care. I'm going to eat the last sandwich. And I'm out for number one. And that's Henderson.
Henderson. But also the Bible salesman, the pervert. Pervert. That's how much I'm sticking my nose up at this guy.
He's a pervert. Yeah. That guy is also a thoroughly unredeeming piece of shit. Who actually is the only thing that scared me in this movie when he popped up?
Oh, yeah. When I got me good. Because it was him and that stupid music stain. You're putting him in your pants.
Yes. Oh, too scary. The music sting at the same time as him popping up. That rock and roll Jaws thing.
I don't know how else they describe it. You didn't pull that. It's not Jaws. Psycho.
It's rock and roll psycho. Oh, okay. Because like, it's like the same dissonant notes. But played by Angus Young from ACDC.
So we get like the pervert Bible salesman. There's the waitress we talked about. There's Estebes. There's his boss, Handershot.
And the Bible salesman must have picked up a hitchhiker who becomes Estebes love interest. Rhett is her name. She looked like someone. She looked like every female actress from the 80s.
Yeah, pretty much. That's who I'm thinking of. It's everyone. Just like very pretty dark hair.
And you know what else she was in? This Laura Harrington. Shoot. What else was she on?
Oh man. She was in Polly. The Polly Shore in a parrot movie? Wait.
Polly Shore plays Polly? I was too young. I didn't know. I couldn't have known.
I was too young. You heard it here, folks. I didn't know. I think that's okay.
No. That's fine. I'll watch a Polly Shore movie. Okay, but not that one.
Not that one. You watch Encino Man. You watch Bio Dome. Yes.
In the Army now. I've never seen that. It's just a remake of Stripes basically. Hit the thing.
How? Which one? The one that says it's a little slow here tonight. Slow tonight, isn't it?
There we go. Oh, Philly's next. I know for a fact you work full time. Well, nothing else.
I mean, you know that I go to work full time. That's true. I guess I don't. The end.
So, alright. So we're meeting our cast of characters here. And one of the truck drivers is driving the only truck with personality because it has a giant fucking hand goblin on it. Hand goblin on it?
Yeah. A green goblin on it? Why? I have no idea.
It's not safe. No, it can't be good for the engine or anything. No. That it's covering the grill like that.
It's covering the grill. It's got to be obstructing his view. The trucks are like all blind spots. I mean, just adding more blind spots.
Also weirdly, I'd say even a bigger issue in terms of blind spots, although I guess if you have a big cargo thing. Rig. A big rig. No.
I don't know if it's called it curtain. Yeah. Which the only thing behind it is a jack in the box that has a green goblin in it. Yeah.
This guy's weird. What's his deal? I don't know. I feel like I wouldn't.
Yeah. See the real bad guy? He seems. Yeah.
He might be. He has probably killed his string of women on his way to that rest up. Yeah. You have to imagine.
You have to. You have no choice. Yeah. So the trucks start taking over like just the trucks.
They're just like driving around in a circle basically. And that's the thing. Like, I was thinking about that the whole time. I thought they would all have different personalities.
Like a gremlins kind of thing. But they didn't. And I think a big part of the reason they didn't is because they're just all big fucking trucks. Like why wouldn't you just have a bunch of different objects be a bunch of different kinds of things?
But my sister asked me about this. She was like, she's like, why are the trucks doing this or that? And I was like, they had a hard enough time getting the human actors to explain their motivations. I don't think they can do that with the trucks.
I mean, there's no rhyme. Yeah. It's completely unclear. Because at one point puts forth a theory about it.
No, his girlfriend does when she's like, you know what? I just realized that all of this started with the. Well, yeah, she says that. But after that he realized he's like, that one's in charge.
It's a broom. That whole speech. What was that? That's later on.
We'll get there. Well, it's after he's pumping gas. I guess there's not really a whole lot to get to here. Yeah.
I feel like there's no like art. There's a beginning and an end. For somebody who claims to write stories for a living. He's not quite familiar with story structure.
You should have gotten a copy of what's that screenwriting book that you're supposed to read when that P.E.E. is big adventures based on. Yeah. 60 minutes, something big.
Has to happen. So like these people there, the Bible salesman gets hit a truck backs into them. But that's a real problem throughout this movie. The way they shoot it is like the guy who plays the Bible salesman like runs into the back of the truck.
That's how they film it. Yeah. As if, you know, it just looks like garbage. But you know, Stephen King was like, perfect.
That's a little great. He was wrong. He was wrong. He claims to not remember anything about this movie.
Which is what you say when you're like being investigated by the Senate. Yeah. Like when you have a Senate here. Yeah.
When you're oh man, I was so fucked up out of my mind. I'm gonna remember trying to touch your dick. Like that's like the mentality. Yeah.
You know, like oh I don't remember. I was too fucked up. I thought what did I do? I remember.
All right. One time when I was in college, I had this roommate who for some reason thought that the only way that me and my other roommate would like him is if he were like a party God. And I so like we're talking like what like a van Wilder? More like a van milder.
Oh, I'm sorry. But sick and I don't and I don't want to get political. But don't please. He was more like a van Wilder to the rise of touch.
Ah, yeah. The weaker. The weaker. Wilder.
Anyway, he first I remember one night he said he posited my roommate. No, no, no. Are you guys going out tonight? Or do I have to blackout for all three of us?
Oh, that hurts my part. That's right. And that the very same night he came back and. What did you guys say that?