Maximum Overdrive

 Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

Remember 1987, when the tail of comet Rhea-M passed through our atmosphere, enabling space invaders to take control of our electric, electronic or internally combustible machines somehow? Man, that was messed up. We’ve all but forgotten about that dark period in our history. Fortunately, Stephen King gave us Maximum Overdrive, a docu-drama preserving for all posterity the brave exploits of the men and women of the Dixie Boy truck stop, held in thrall by a band of killer semis. The film, propelled by the sound track of AC/DC and absolutely no cocaine abuse whatsoever, stands as a testament to eight days in the eighties when we banded together to prevail over the evil of technology, rather than hiding in the crawlspace, only venturing out once to trap pets for dinner, because that would have been very wrong. No, we’ve moved on from those dark days, and now we return the honor, Mr. King, by running your film through an antique, manually cranked, wringer washer version of our scorecard machine, and the results are thus:

• Bank signs saying “Fuck You,” ATMs saying “You are an asshole.” Best or worst Jenny Holzer installation ever. = +10pts 
• Hiring AC/DC to do your soundtrack and then killing them in the first five minutes. = +20pts 
• All right, everyone off the Schadenfreude State Bridge, it’s about to rise. Ok, everyone off now. Hey! Get off, I said! The bridge is - ah no…aw, HAHAHAHAHA, look at those assholes on the Schadenfreude Bridge. They sure are getting horribly crushed. = +15pts 
• Putting the head of the Green Goblin on your truck. = +23pts 
• Having the sense not to look directly into a gasoline pump. = +17pts 
• Homicidal electric steak knife. = +12pts 
• Killing a homicidal electric steak knife with a hammer. =+3pts 
• An electrifying early performance by Giancarlo Esposito. Get it? ‘Cause he gets elec - WHAT? STOP THROWING THINGS. = -7pts 
• The whole soda machine to steam roller sequence. = +37pts

• Regular cars, the machines responsible for killing tens of thousands of people in the U.S. annually, can’t be bothered to help out the aliens. Meh, they seem to be saying, we’ve done worse. = -23pts 
• Let’s see, everything’s ok here at this gas station, doo dee doo, dead body, blood spatter, dead body, clock running backwards. CLOCK RUNNING BACKWARDS? OMFG. = +17pts 
• Antagonistic lawn sprinklers. = +3pts 
• Dog-killing toy cop car. = +7pts 
• Homicidal ice cream truck. = +13pts 
• Not being able to get out of the way of a truck backing up at you from across a parking lot. = -17pts 
• Bubba Hendershot. = +12pts 
• Doo dee doo, we’re the only couple driving on this state or federal highway, doo dee do. = -3pts 
• Having a bazooka lying around. = +7pts 
• Firing it at a gas station. = -27pts 
• Making a pass at a girl who just threatened to slit your throat. = -14pts 
• “You sure make love like a hero.” = +25pts 
• What the hell, are Bill and Brett sharing a cream puff? = +2pts 
• Sleeping with a guy who just crawled through a sewer. = -17pts 
• Mr. King? Mr. King?
  ZZZZZZZZ………GLUH?
  What do we film next, sir?
  IZZA JEEP...GLUH….ZZ….MACHINE GUN! MORSE CODE! MORE GAS MORE GAS…ZZHHAA ALIENS..SWEEP UP… BROOM…ZZZZZZZZZZZZ…….GUH…ZZZZ... = +43pts 
• “It’s like Neville Chamberlain giving in to the Nazis!” = -13pts 
• All the trucks in South Carolina head to the only station where people are stupid enough to give them gas. = -13pts 
• Not escaping through the sewer 24 HOURS EARLIER. = -24pts 
• The airplane that landed on a school bus. = +3pts 
• Li’l Deke’s cathartic drive-thru destroying moment. = +7pts 
• Mr. King? Mr. King? Where are you going?
  WHAT?
  We haven’t finished shooting the last scene, sir.
  I DON’T CARE.
  All the actors are just sitting on the boat, sir. The grip is yelling about overtime. That’s what he’s called, right? The grip, sir?
  JESUS FUCK, RUDY, I GOT THE FEAR, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. THROW THE GODDAM FILM INTO THE LAKE WITH THE ACTORS FOR ALL I CARE. WRITE A GODDAM EPILOGUE OR SOMETHING, YOU FIGURE IT THE FUCK OUT.
  
  
  The Epilogue of Rudy the P.A.
  Two days later, a large UFO was destroyed in space by a Russian ‘weather satellite’ which had been equipped with a laser cannon and class IV nuclear missiles. Approximately six days later, the earth passed beyond the tail of Rhea-M, exactly as predicted. The survivors of the Dixie Boy are still survivors. = +105pts

Total Score: +176pts
Available on: YouTube

Space invaders! What did you expect would happen when you bade a random selection of our technology to go haywire for eight days? Was it a strategy to destroy our infrastructure, let as many people die as possible, and then have the survivors greet you as saviors? We have some experience with that strategy, so we could have told you that it wouldn’t work out very well. And maybe you should have tried to control the really deadly machinery, like "weather satellites" equipped with laser canons and class IV nuclear missiles. That seems like a pretty big oversight.

It’s ok, though. You may have destroyed our technology and left us at the mercy of the Amish mafia, but you also left us with great footage of bridge malfunctions, soda-machine deaths, and belligerent drive-thru intercoms. These images keep us warm at night; they’ve softened our worst fears of disasters through vicarious experience. If, at some point in the future, an airplane lands on our child’s school bus, we’ll have been emotionally prepared. Or if a soda machine fires cans of pop at our heads with such velocity that our skulls crack, at least we know that death will occur before we have time to be embarrassed. So thank you for these gifts, space invaders. You may be looking down on us in despair as you wait eons for the next comet to pass close enough for you to get up to your old tricks, but in the meantime, know that we forgive you.