Maximum Overdrive just hit Netflix. It’s Stephen King’s rowdy 1986 take on his short story Trucks, and still the only movie he’s ever directed himself.
The setup is exactly as wild as its reputation suggests: machines wake up, trucks go on a killing spree, AC/DC blasts through the whole thing, and that Green Goblin-faced semi completely runs away with the movie.
Critics trashed Maximum Overdrive when it came out, and it bombed at the box office. That didn’t kill it. The movie’s campy action and pure what-am-I-even-looking-at energy helped it find a cult audience, and interest has been climbing again ahead of its 40th anniversary in 2026, especially after star Emilio Estevez revealed that a sequel script got turned down.
The timing matters for another reason, too. Stephen King eventually disowned Maximum Overdrive, called it a “moron movie,” admitted he was “coked out of [his] mind” while making it, and even apologized to Emilio Estevez. He also spent years taking shots at adaptations like Graveyard Shift, The Running Man, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining when he felt they missed the emotional core of the story.
Then you have 2023’s The Boogeyman. King liked that one even though it changed plenty, cut Lester Billings down to a brief role, and swapped in a glowing-eyed skeletal monster because, in King’s view, it still held onto the fear and the truth.
If you keep up with Stephen King on screen, Maximum Overdrive is worth watching for that contrast by itself.
You can stream Maximum Overdrive on Netflix now.
Author: Jesús Bosque
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