Comfort Films 124: Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Comfort Films Podcast

For the second of our DisComfort Films episodes for Halloween month, we’re joined by special guest and real life pal Cathleen Mortensen Bittner to discuss the one and only Stephen King adaptation directed by the man himself, Maximum Overdrive! Though this gory, darkly humorous film has never received its due from critics, all three of us consider it a masterpiece of cartoonish, near-slapstick horror. We discuss King’s director influences from Hitchcock to Romero, the hard-hitting AC/DC-dominated soundtrack, the Cold War as a backdrop to this and many other 80s films, Brat Pack star Emilio Estevez’s ex-con hero Bill Robinson, the questionably criminal background of Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), the role of anxiety in horror, and the movie’s many excellent practical effects, including the very angry soda machine. Keep a close eye on your appliances and join us to explore the question, “Who made who?”