Master manipulator Stephen King, making his directoral debut from his own script, fails to create a convincing enough environment to make the kind of nonsense he’s offering here believable or fun.
King starts out with a small-town idyll soon disrupted by a mindless revolt of trucks. He collects a typical mix of rednecks, good old boys, restless youth, drifters and the decent folk in a small corner of North Carolina where they hole up at a truck stop as the trucks stampede.
Truck stop is run as if it were a feudal fiefdom, complete with arsenal, by redneck despot Pat Hingle who gives an amusing performance as a true screen swine. Also on hand is Emilio Estevez as a cook in bondage to Hingle by virtue of his probation from the pen, but he’s gone to college and is really a good kid.
