In 1986, Stephen King turned director, adapting his short story 'Trucks' for the cinema; the result was Maximum Overdrive, a hokey horror with lots of silly deaths, an excess of vehicular destruction, a rockin' soundtrack, and a truck that looked like The Green Goblin! The film received negative reviews and was a box-office flop, although I actually found it to be a whole lot of fun.Trucks is another attempt at bringing King's short story to the screen, this time by director Chris Thomson, and it too is extremely dumb, even more-so at times, with a couple of unbelievably silly killings (try not to laugh at the sight of an inflated unoccupied hazmat suit wielding an axe, or the killer toy truck!); as such, I also found it entertaining.Sadly, there's no AC/DC blaring over the action, and the film suffers slightly from a noticeable lack of a big green-faced semi-trailer, but it's still worth checking out - especially for the surprisingly good ending.

Practically throughout half of the film, I kept on wondering why that imbecilic ginger head of the lead actor looked so damn familiar. And then suddenly, maybe because he pulled a particularly stupid facial expression or something, it just hit me! It's Arnold Pointdexter from the original "Revenge of the Nerds"! You know, the guy with the enormous curly hairdo and glasses as thick as strawberry jelly jars! Apparently he also appeared in a trillion of lousy TV-series, but since I never watched any of those, he's still just Pointdexter to me. I mean, this already should give you some sort of indication of this movie's quality level, no? "Trucks" is a TV-remake of the only (not very successful) horror movie that its author Stephen King directed himself, about a bunch of lifeless trucks in the Area 51 region going berserk without apparent reason, and the fate of humanity lies in the incompetent hands of the ginger artist formerly known as Arnold Pointdexter the nerd! Indeed, "Trucks" is a pretty bad film, but at the same time it also has to be said that it's a tremendously FUN bad film! Like many of the other reviewers have already pointed out, director Chris Thomson and writer Brian Taggart (usually a quite reliable choice) totally didn't grab all the great opportunities you get with murderous wheels! The whole film simply features a handful of trucks, and only one of them is a genuinely impressive eighteen-wheeler. Instead of bombastic machines, the script somehow prefers to generate horror situations through remote-controlled toy trucks and even self-inflatable safety suits. Needless to say these sequences look quite ridiculous and completely sucks out all the scary potential of the basic concept. I must admit, however, that I was pleasantly surprised with the body count and even the amount of gore and bloodshed in "Trucks", especially considering the fact it's a made-for- TV effort. The characters are hopelessly stereotypical; your average assembly of local yokels, reluctant tourists and troubled teenagers. Their acting performances are quite poor, though I have a weakness for the stunning Brenda Bakke. She's a genuine 90's beauty and I never really understood why her career didn't skyrocket. The ending is relatively decent, even though you can see it coming from fifty miles away.

Yes. Glorious line, innit? What I personally love about above expression of frustration and wonder is how clearly and thoroughly nonsensical it is. Who, pray tell, is the speaker directing the insult at? The car? I believe I read the short story of King's(or perhaps a similar one by another author), and I frankly see reason to attribute the aforementioned and other bits of silly and forced dialog(which is not all of it) in this to him. On the other hand, I haven't watched Maximum Overdrive, but I can imagine that it's better than this. So this plays upon our fear of, well, trucks, and other large, noisy machines that can crush us. We get a couple of Christine shots, and the concept is treated with a pretty considerable amount of respect, with the gradual build-up early on being somewhat reminiscent of such obviously superior pictures as The Birds. This backfires at times, as it leads to goofy sequences that are utterly impossible to take seriously. The editing and cinematography are standard. More coverage here and there would have helped loads. This does contain one of the funniest movie deaths of all time, and there are laughs to be had, if most are probably unintentional. There is some OK suspense and tension in this. The acting is lackluster. Several of the reasonably developed characters are obnoxious and just complain. The FX vary. On the whole, this is relatively satisfying if you don't expect too much from it, and the ending's not bad. There is a lot bloody(if a little of it looks ludicrously fake) violence and infrequent strong language in this. I recommend this to fans of the idea. 5/10

It's not a remake of Maximum Overdrive, it's an unmake - what that film should have been. Trucks is based pretty closely on the short story, which is one of King's best in his Nightshift collection. The action is constant. It never lets up. And for a TV movie, there seems a lot of explosions, or budget in other words. Apart from The Car (1977), or Killdozer (1974), it's a unique movie - well, trinique - being the only films of vehicular possession that I recall. Woops I forgot Christine (1983). Quadnique.A few times it snaps reality, when, I think, adding ideas King maybe didn't. It was a relief and pleasure seeing the ideas King developed faithfully appear as the movie progressed, making me remember the story I read ages ago. The acting, especially at-times-terror-stricken Timothy Busfield, and character, is de-fine.And about the people who can't believe it, or the intriguing and various hard trying attempts at explanation, which added more fun, depth, and reality to the black magic of the story, I think of what Stephen King said when he heard of people who can't believe in these stories:I feel a kind of sadness.Now if they just unmake The Mangler in the same way, which was the best story in that book...