Trucks – Stephen King’s Trucks (1997)

Directed by: Chris Thomson | 95 minutes | drama, horror, thriller, science fiction | Actors: Timothy Busfield, Brenda Bakke, Aidan Devine, Roman Podhora, Jay Brazeau, Brendan Fletcher, Amy Stewart, Victor Cowie, Sharon Bajer, Jonathan Barrett, Rick Skene, Don Granberry, Barbara Lee Edwards, Gene Pyrz, Kirk Harper

Many of Stephen King’s nail-biting stories have been made into movies for years. There are a number of very good film versions (‘The Shining’, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Misery’), but the majority do not rise above the level of the average B-horror film. The story Trucks is a short story and was already filmed in 1986 with the title ‘Maximum Overdrive’ starring eighties star Emilio Estevez and director Stephen King himself. That film was not really a masterpiece, so this story was made into a film especially for television in 1997. The original title of the story has been retained. The story is quintessential Stephen King: the struggle of the simple man against an all-powerful dark evil. Evil takes many forms in King’s stories and this time evil spirits take possession of trucks that suddenly turn into murderous and bloodthirsty vehicles.

For a change, the whole thing doesn’t even all take place in Maine, Stephen King’s home state, but in a desert hamlet in Nevada. Close to this hamlet is the infamous Area 51. This area really exists and here is a secret American air base. This base has historically been cited by UFO supporters as a location where the US government is said to be hiding alien intelligent beings. An ideal place for evil spirits. In this hamlet we meet a number of people who are all there for a specific reason, be it as a tourist, whether they are passing through or simply at work. As befits a good standard movie, this is a mixed group consisting of an old hippie, two teenagers, a couple from the city, a beautiful woman, some local farmers and a hero. Almost all of them experience something strange with heavy trucks at the beginning of the movie and it is clear that something bad is about to happen and not much later the group of people are trapped in a gas station as the trucks tear around them, each trying to kill who makes an attempt to escape.

‘Maximum Overdrive’ wasn’t the best movie, but this ‘Trucks’ is really bad. The big question is why director Chris Thomson dared to make such a bad remake. If you’re making a remake of a bad film, there’s really only credit to be gained, you’d think: not so, it could be worse. The acting is appallingly bad, the action scenes are unbearable and not a single moment is exciting or fearful and not a single moment do you empathize with the group of people. The trucks aren’t really scary either and that’s a shame because Steven Spielberg proved that something like this can be very scary with ‘Duel’ or just think of the opening scene of ‘Jeepers Creepers’. None of that, ‘Trucks’ comes across as pretty stupid, with the low point being the scene in which a radio controlled truck attacks the postman. This is Stephen King’s ‘Close Encounter of the Machine Kind’ screams the cover of ‘Trucks’, an absurd comparison of course. Well, the story may not be that dynamic for a really good film adaptation, but ‘Trucks’ is a low point in Stephen King film adaptations. The master would be ashamed.