Trucks (1997)


Maximum Overdrive is certainly not a grand piece of cinema but, despite the ineptness of Stephen King as a director, the movie turned out to be quite fun despite dragging a bit as it got toward the end.  Even through his haze of alcohol and cocaine King knew the whole idea behind his short story "Trucks" was ridiculous and to take it serious would be a mistake.  Unfortunately, just over a decade later, someone made that mistake.

Ray (Timothy Busfield) has moved with his son Logan (Brendan Fletcher) to a rural town in Nevada after Logan's mother was killed in Detroit.  His neighbor Hope (Brenda Bakke) has returned to the area to open up a motel and offer guided hiking tours of the area, and her current customers are couple June (Sharon Bajer) and George Yeager (Victor Cowie) as well as Thad (Roman Podhora), his daughter Abby (Amy Stewart) and her uncle Jack (Jay Brazeau).  Hope, Abby, Thad and Jack soon become stranded when attacked by a refrigerator truck which, it soon becomes apparent, does not have a driver.

Ray comes and gets them, bringing them back to the local diner where they find themselves under siege by a number of different trucks, with the refrigerator truck leading the charge.  Elsewhere nearby other people are attacked by vehicles as well.  Finally, Thad gets the idea to go find a means of rescue while Ray distracts the trucks during their escape. 

Without the overacting of all the characters and the soundtrack from AC/DC this just comes off as what the original was: Night of the Living Dead with vehicles.  It doesn't even get as creative as Maximum Overdrive with the soda machine attack or the opening on the drawbridge.  It just tells the story and, while it doesn't do a horrible job, it does it in as dull a manner as possible.  King may have had no experience, but Chris Thomson has no flare.  It is a made-for-TV film, albeit a bit bloodier as it was made for USA Network in the '90s, but it still has that feeling of a miniscule budget meant to cash in on a current trend.  In the '90s television adaptations of King material was that trend. 

The only time this approaches the outrageousness of King's movie is when a postal worker is attacked by a remote control toy truck, which somehow gets the better of him.  It has nothing to do with the rest of the movie and is over-the-top bloody and bloody stupid at the same time.  While the trucks seem to be the main things coming alive until later, this also has some weird inconsistent kills like a hazmat suit filled with air suddenly wielding an axe.  There are many of these side situations that appear to be in the film only because there was time that needed to be filled as the original story wasn't enough to even provide enough time for a TV movie.  There are also several sly references to Maximum Overdrive, but they all turn out to be disappointments.

Trucks is not an unwatchable movie, but there really is no reason to watch it.  The short story was no great shakes, Maximum Overdrive is an hilarious failure that still managed to be a cult classic, and this adaptation has been, unsurprisingly, forgotten. 

Trucks (1997)
Time: 95 minutes
Starring: Timothy Busfield, Brenda Bakke, Brendan Fletcher, Amy Stewart, Roman Podhora
Director: Chris Thomson

 

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