Maximum Overdrive

Maximum Overdrive

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Movie Reviews of Maximum Overdrive

Movie Review: Essential Post-Blackout viewing
Summary: 5 Stars

Maximum Overdrive is a great film (hear me out before clicking on the "Unhelpful review" button!).
First of all, it is set in a situation that we can all relate to, everyday life in an urban environment, compare this with an empty hotel at the top of a mountain for example.
It preys on one of our biggest 21st Century fears, that we are no longer in control of our environment. Humankind has become so detached from the everyday rigours of surviving that our ancestors went through that we have no idea what we would do if our civilization broke down. No electricity, no fridge, no food, no machines, no information, no phones. Maximum Overdrive brings these fears to life, and then adds the horrific twist, that the machines then turn on their masters, although slightly after the Terminator franchise had started rolling. Surely this fear is easier to relate to than that the girl you bully at school may turn out to possess supernatural powers she can deploy for revenge purposes...
The movie also deals with alienation while in an urban environment. Like the group stuck in the mall in George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead", the people isolated in the truck stop are at once in a familiar environment, and at the same time stuck in a totally foreign world, making it easier for the viewer to relate, and amplifying the horror felt watching it.
The best bits of the film occur in the opening sequences, when the machines go crazy, decimating the world's humans. The middle section deals with the increasing tensions between the people caught in the truck seige and the final part deals with their escape and eventual triumph over the machines, culminating in Emilio Estevez's final, hilarious quote...
Maximum Overdrive is a fantastic modern horror movie, bringing terror to familiar situations, and Post-Blackout, I recommend you watch this movie again and allow yourself to think "What if..."