TRUCKS (1997)

TRUCKS (1997)

Tagline : U-Turn, U-Die!

(Sci-Fi, Horror, What The Truck?) [PG-13]

There had to be someone driving with their head down, trucks don't drive by themselves!

I have been ignoring this movie for a long time, but then it ended up in my streaming queue, so I decided to finally check it out. Little did I know this is actually a re-make of what MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE should have been. 

In this one, there is some sort of chemical spill that thrusts fumes into the air, and that gets blamed for machinery coming to life. Mostly trucks, but there is at least one thing that isn’t a truck that comes to life as well at one point in this movie. The script does lean heavily towards blaming something related to AREA 51, but….

A woman just trying to make it named Hope lives in this small town called Lunar and is giving tours of the area. They quickly discover there are driverless trucks hunting them down. They head back into the town they first started in and hold up at a motel/diner/gas station. There along with the group already at the diner, they are set to face off against these trucks that want something from them and are willing to kill to get it. 

What differs drastically in this movie from the original is that not every machine is possessed by this chemical alien or whatever the heck. It seems to be largely trucks, like literally any kind of truck. The other difference is that this movie has far better acting than the original. Both Brenda Black (from TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT) and Hope and Amy Stewart as Abby are amazing in this thing. Another stand out is Timothy Busfield (from FIELD OF DREAMS) who plays Ray. We also get a few other kinds of quirky and fun characters in this but none are as annoying as Connie was in MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE. The other things that put this movie over the top were both the middle being not nearly as boring as the original and that damn ending. I freakin loved the ending for this one a LOT more than what we got the first time around. Especially if you connect the dots back to earlier TV broadcasts in the movie, it’s almost haunting. 

I can say this, if you stuck AC/DC’s “Who Made Who” in this movie in either the little RC truck scene or the ending credits, people would have been talking about this movie a LOT more. What I did miss was the creepy toy goblin truck from the original. I do wish that one had made another appearance. Apparently, this movie plays it a lot closer to the actual short story Stephen King wrote as well. I should also note that there are no skeletons driving trucks in this. I am not sure why the posters show that.  

There is part of me that wishes this had been a theatrical release and that they had put just a bit more effort in on the soundtrack even if AC/DC couldn’t be involved. However, what we did get was a better story some meaningful dialog, more likable characters, and far better atmospherics. There are more than a few scenes in this movie that are just like – “Wow, that was actually pretty fantastic!”. Turn the brain off and have fun with this one, because it’s a gem that ought to get more credit. 

I give this one a 5 out of 7. Yes, in fact, that is a better rating than the original and I have a lot of nostalgia for the original. So take that for what it’s worth. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF TRIMARK PICTURES GROUP AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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