Stephen King may have only directed one movie in his many years as a horror icon, but Stanley Kubrick’s (loose) adaptation The Shining, Stephen King remains a behemoth of American horror literature. King’s work has been adapted to both the big and small screen to varying degrees of success over the decades, with both blockbusters and flops to the prolific author’s name.
However, King himself only sat in the director’s chair once for action-horror hybrid Maximum Overdrive starring Emilio Estevez. This “attack of the machines” sci-fi horror was adapted from King's short story “Trucks,” during the mid-‘80s when his career was enjoying an unprecedented high. Unfortunately, the film itself was impacted by his then rampant cocaine addiction and alcoholism, which led the author to spend much of the decade in a scarcely-ed daze.
Whatever the film's many, many faults, Maximum Overdrive still remains a cult favorite. And credit to King, the writer/director managed to make a movie so gruesome that even fellow horror legend George A Romero reportedly balked at his first cut of Maximum Overdrive. This original edit featured some much gorier scenes, including the bible salesman's face peeling off and - most infamously - a child being run over by a steamroller, whose head exploded in a shower of gore.
A lot of these shots understandably had to be trimmed out of Maximum Overdrive or it would have instead received the commercial kiss of death, the NC-17. However, the reports that King's friend and collaborator Romero almost threw up watching King's initial version means the author likely knew cuts would be necessary, even before censors insisted upon them. In the years since Maximum Overdrive flopped, rumors have suggested only King has the original, uncut version of the critically-derided horror movie.
However, King himself has since debunked that claim, so the uncensored footage of Maximum Overdrive is now considered lost and has ed the cut sequences from author’s Tobe Hooper collaboration The Mangler. He's essentially ruled out a return to the director's chair following Maximum Overdrive, which is a shame since there are parts of the movie which show he had promise as a filmmaker.
