How Stephen King ruined one of his movies: “I was coked out of my mind”
The literary maestro of horror, Stephen King boasts a legacy filled with spine-tingling tales that have captivated readers for decades. His ability to craft unsettling narratives has translated into numerous successful film and television adaptations, ranging from Stanley Kubrick’s unforgettable version of The Shining to the huge-budget blockbuster horror franchise IT: Parts One and Two. But, a notable exception exists — King’s directorial debut with Maximum Overdrive.
This peculiar Emilio Estevez-starring cult classic stands as an enigmatic entry in King’s extensive bibliography, and its tumultuous production can be attributed to a significant factor: Stephen King’s well-documented struggle with cocaine addiction. In 1986, Maximum Overdrive roared onto the screen, marking Stephen King’s maiden voyage into the director’s chair.
The movie presents a high-octane, sci-fi horror scenario in which machines and electronics mysteriously attain sentience, wreaking havoc and terrorising humanity. Vending machines dispense lethal snacks, lawnmowers transform into murderous machines, and menacing trucks relentlessly pursue terrified individuals.
On paper, the premise brims with potential for thrills and chills, if not slightly too similar to his excellent novel Christine, which debuted several years earlier and followed a sentient and malevolent car. The movie’s execution, however, was marred by a tumultuous and outright illicit personal struggle that King was facing.
What sets Maximum Overdrive apart from other adaptations of King’s work is the author’s unfiltered confession about his personal struggles during its production. In Tony Magistrale’s 2003 book, Hollywood’s Stephen King, a comprehensive exploration of the history of King adaptations, the author bares his soul about the dire circumstances engulfing him at the time. King candidly revealed, “The problem with that film is that I was coked out of my mind all through its production.”
King’s troubles with cocaine are well documented. The author confessed himself to spending a good period of the 1980s on the drug, famously writing several of his major novels under the influence. For his 1981 book Cujo, King described once writing it an almost continuous blur and woefully claimed to barely remember writing any of it all. As it turns out, his substance addiction didn’t just stop at the page – it spilt out onto a movie set, too.
Despite these shortcomings, Maximum Overdrive has garnered a cult following over the years, with some viewers appreciating its campy charm and B-movie aesthetics. Even the movie’s tagline, “Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive: It’s quite possibly the most terrifying motion picture you will ever see,” has since become legendary for its unintentional and inane humour. Is it worth a watch? Almost certainly – if only to see the tangible results of a man who confessed he “didn’t know what I was doing”.
