D: Stephen King. Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, Christopher Murney. 1986. De Laurentis Entertainment Group. Rated R.

I learned to drive when I was fifteen. It was an interesting experience. Sjorka and Kiril had been kidnapped and for some reason, I really wasn't comfortable with Mirelle driving. Something about the fact that she spaces out at odd times. It's kind of scary, you know? Driving down the road and suddenly she decides to take a look at a field of flowers and she's looking behind her while she's driving and then there's a huge truck in the middle of the road. You understand why it's unsettling, then.

In Maximum Overdrive driving becomes an entirely new terror when all machines on earth suddenly come to life with only one thing in mind: homicide. Suddenly people are being run down by Mack trucks and lawn mowers, chopped up by electric knives, electrocuted by video games, beaned by soda machines. In one shot a woman is hanging out of a window, apparently sans clothing. I don't want to thing about what killed her.

Meanwhile, back at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop, Bill Robinson (Estevez) is trying to keep his little group of survivors through the whole mess alive. He's got his work cut out for him. Especially when the army of machines brings in their big guns: military equipment.

All in all a fun movie, although of fairly low quality. Stephen King really should stick to writing, but he gets enough laughs to make Maximum Overdrive a worthwhile (if not very worthwhile) film.

Body Count: Hard to tell. It's very difficult the number of people who die when the machines attack.

Survivors who actually saw the monster: Anyone in the world who survived the film.

Classic Quote: Frankly, though I did like the movie, I'm hard pressed to come up with a single, memorable line which can't be censored, so we'll have to go with Stephen King as some unnamed character: Honey? Come here. This machine just call me an @$$#*%&!

Overall Rating: 1.5 Blood Purity. It was really bad, but it was fun.

That's Maximum Overdrive. Until next week, this is Dannis Ken saying, "How on earth does somebody get killed by a Walkman?"