The Stephen King movie that cost a cameraman an eye: “That was horrific, just horrific”
The productions of many horror films have been plagued with disasters and nasty accidents, whether it be Ellen Burstyn sustaining a back injury at the hands of William Friedkin while shooting The Exorcist or Leigh Whannell almost drowning while filming the bathtub scene in Saw. While performing gruesome torture scenes and deaths, many actors have been subjected to fates that are almost as dangerous as the stories happening on screen, with the glitzy Hollywood facade not protecting them from injury or genuine threat.
The process of filmmaking, no matter how high-budget or organised, can always become derailed by real-life complications, as the art of recreating real life on the big screen will always end up mirroring the mess of human infallibilities. But when it comes to shooting gory horror films and the extreme action sequences associated with them, the genre has become known for being particularly demanding for those involved, with one debut feature film from an esteemed writer quickly escalating into complete chaos and genuine danger.
Stephen King is often regarded as the father of the horror genre as a whole, becoming globally recognised for penning countless novels that were later adapted for the big screen, from The Shining and IT to The Shawshank Redemption. As a result, many fans were eager to see how his skills would translate as a director after the announcement of his directorial debut.
Directed in 1986 by King, Maximum Overdrive follows the aftermath of a comet passing close to Earth as machines come to life and begin a murderous rampage. A group of people at a remote truck stop are held hostage by a gang of homicidal 18-wheelers and try to defeat the killer machines. It is a truly bizarre story and one that was not received well by audiences or the crew who made the film, with one incident taking place on a set that forever tainted their memory of the production.
When discussing the film, the cast described one day of the shoot in which something very close to the events of the story happened in real life, saying, “We were shooting a scene where a lawnmower—the machine that cut the grass—was following a boy to kill him. And we put the camera on the ground with pieces of wood beneath. To wedge, okay? I remember that Armando Nanuzzi asked Stephen King, “Can we take out the blades?” But Stephen King said, “No, no, I like to see them.” Armando said, “But we don’t see them in the shot.” But Stephen King said, “No. No. Better that you let it.”
Apparently, Armando asked many times to take out the blades, but King wanted it to look “as real as possible”. Naturally, this is a huge hazard, with the team shooting a scene in which the lawnmower is supposed to move around without being controlled by anyone. During the first take, it didn’t move, so King asked them to raise the power, continually raising it until it moved closer to the camera, devouring some of the plastic that covered the lens of the camera and moving closer until the wooden wedge got caught inside the blades.
At one point, it got so close to the matte box of the camera that the camera operator lifted the camera away, with the machine splintering a piece of wood that shot out at that very moment and went straight into his eye. The crew continued to describe the incident, saying, “That splint of wood—my god, the odds were a gazillion and one—that splint of wood then went into Armando’s eye. For a cameraman to lose his eye…my god… the blood was everywhere. That was horrific. The wood chip in his eye. Just horrific.”
For the cast and crew, the scene they were filming descended into complete horror as it reflected the violence of the script, with a real person being attacked both by the machine on the set and the careless demands of King. There are some things that should stay on the page, and this moment is certainly one of them.
