Trucks (1997) – Review

When Stephen King first took a crack at bringing his killer truck story to the screen, he already proved this idea could crash and burn in spectacular fashion. Apparently, that wasn’t warning enough. Because 1997’s Trucks rolls in anyway, stretching, mangling, and flattening the premise into a wheezing made-for-TV relic that somehow makes one wonder if the vehicles should’ve just finished the job and run the script over completely.

Stephen King’s Trucks was first adapted into the cocaine-and-AC/DC-fueled chaos of Maximum Overdrive back in 1986, which, for all its screaming insanity and exploding soda machines, at least had a camp energy that made it unforgettable. Fast forward to 1997, and the USA Network decided the world needed a more “faithful” adaptation. Unfortunately, “faithful” doesn’t always mean “better.” In fact, Trucks proves that sticking closer to the source can turn a wild concept into a slow, joyless slog.

 

“Son, this will not be a Field of Dreams.”

We’re in Lunar, Nevada, a dusty speck of a town that survives on two things: its nearby military base (shh, don’t say Area 51 too loud) and alien-themed folklore. But forget flying saucers—Lunar gets invaded by Peterbilts. It starts small: a guy named Phil (Harry Nelkin) gets flattened when a semi crashes into his house while he’s taking a shower. Take that, Hitchcock. Then a frozen meat truck eats its own driver, because…irony? Meanwhile, Hope (Brenda Bakke), who runs a hiking-and-tourism gig, is guiding some out-of-towners—Jack (Jay Brazeau), Thad (Roman Podhora), and his daughter Abby (Amy Stewart)—when they stumble onto Phil’s truck blocking the road, and have to then dodge the meat truck, followed by the discovery of Phil’s lacerated corpse.

 

Welcome to Lunar, folks.

Naturally, she calls in local gas station owner Ray (Timothy Busfield), an overprotective dad and his teenage son Logan (Brendan Fletcher), who immediately get nearly sideswiped by a rogue yellow truck, and before you can say “Stephen King,” the group is holed up at the diner/gas station/cabin combo while trucks circle the lot like lazy sharks. A semi tries to bury Abby and Logan alive under a drainage pipe like it’s starring in a very slow-motion Saw trap. Rednecks show up, one blows himself up with Molotov cocktails, and everyone spends way too much time debating how to sneak past parked trucks. We even get a HAZMAT suit that inflates itself and goes full Halloween on two poor workers.

Note: While this film stays more in keeping with the short story, with it being only trucks that come alive, the scene with the HAZMAT suit is goofier than anything we saw in Maximum Overdrive.

The machines, meanwhile, play the long game—keeping Ray alive since he’s the only guy around who can pump their gas. There’s some sneaking, some failed escapes, a few more pancake victims, and eventually, Ray manages to blow up the diner with one of the lead rigs inside. Problem solved? Not quite. By morning, he, Hope, and Logan are still being chased by a charred truck until a helicopter swoops in to rescue them. Hooray! Except… surprise—no one’s flying it. The movie ends with the chopper tilting into the sky while everyone looks horrified, because apparently Trucks wanted one last twist of “what the hell?” before the credits rolled.

 

That’s sort of an ending, I guess.

Stray Observations:

• Ray brought his son south after his wife was killed during a drive-by in Detroit, to keep him safe from guns and gangs. But isn’t the “South” known for its guns and rednecks? Is that much better?
• The power is knocked out by a truck, and we get some vague explanation as to why the phones and radio don’t work, but the television occasionally turns out to provide plot developments.
• Trucks was directed by Chris Thomson, who mostly worked in television. You can tell—this thing has all the visual flair of a rerun of Highway to Heaven, just with more tire tracks on people’s faces.
• Unlike Maximum Overdrive, which at least gave us that insane “lawnmower vs. Little League team” moment, Trucks is PG-level tame.
• A mailman is mercilessly bludgeoned to death by a toy Tonka truck, and I will give the movie bonus points for that.

 

Is that gore or strawberry jam?

On paper, Trucks actually does follow King’s short story more closely. The setting is smaller, the tone more serious, and there’s even an attempt to tap into the hopelessness of humanity being outmatched by their own machines. The problem is, the film has the energy of a stalled engine. Where Maximum Overdrive gave us campy gore and AC/DC blasting in the background, Trucks gives us long stretches of people sitting around in a diner arguing about what to do next, while the trucks—wait for it—drive in circles.

 

This film feels like it’s stuck in neutral.

It’s almost impressive how a movie with killer vehicles can feel so lethargic. Even the big “attack” sequences are clunky. One guy gets pancaked by a pickup in broad daylight while staring at it for about twenty seconds too long. Another person gets mowed down because apparently nobody in this universe understands the concept of stepping to the side. The supposed climax involves the survivors trying to sneak past the trucks in the middle of the night, which sounds thrilling until you actually watch it. And even though the body count is technically higher than King’s short story, every single death feels about as exciting as watching someone lose at Frogger. Compared to Maximum Overdrive—with its exploding gas station, deadly vending machines, and lawnmower Little League carnage—this tally is about as bloodless and bland as TV movies come.

 

Fifty percent of this film is just people staring out windows.

As for the performances, Timothy Busfield’s Ray is technically the “hero,” but he spends most of the movie looking like he wandered into the wrong production while waiting for a West Wing callback. Brenda Bakke’s Hope tries to inject some toughness into the proceedings, but she’s mostly relegated to shouting lines like “We have to get out of here!” Brendan Fletcher and Amy Stewart do their part as teenagers who alternate between sulking and shrieking. The real stars, of course, are the trucks. Unfortunately, they don’t exactly have the charisma of the homicidal Happy Toyz truck from Maximum Overdrive. They just kind of roll forward, stop, roll back, and repeat. Imagine trying to feel terror while watching a traffic jam, and you’ve got the vibe.

 

This film could definitely have used a Green Goblin truck.

At the end of the day, Trucks is that rare beast: a movie that’s more faithful to Stephen King’s story than its infamous predecessor, yet somehow manages to be less fun, less scary, and infinitely more forgettable. Where Maximum Overdrive was a loud, dumb, glorious mess, Trucks is a quiet, dull, joyless one—so committed to being “serious” that it squeezes out every drop of entertainment. It doesn’t even have the decency to go off the rails; it just sputters along until it runs out of gas.