In 1986, Stephen King took over the director's desk for the first time to shoot Maximum Overdrive, a crazy thriller about how technology rebels against humanity. But what was happening on the set turned out to be scarier than the plot itself.
King would later call this film his worst, but it wasn't just about the quality — during filming, a tragedy occurred that forever remained a bloodstain in the history of the project.
"I want the blades to be real"
One of the most terrifying episodes of the film is the scene where a lawnmower chases and kills a boy. Cameraman Armando Nannuzzi repeatedly asked King to remove the blades for safety, but the author of Shining was adamant.:
"No, no, I want to see them. I want the blades to be real," he insisted, although the blades were still not visible in the frame.
The camera was mounted on wooden supports directly in front of the lawn mower. After several takes, the mechanism did not move, and King ordered an increase in power. At some point, the mower jerked forward, crushed the plastic lens casing, and then the wooden support.
Splinter in the eye
A piece of wood flew off and stabbed the operator right in the eye with great speed.
"The cameraman lost an eye, my God, there was blood everywhere," eyewitnesses recalled.
The irony of fate? In a movie where cars kill people, the first real victim turned out to be not a scenario at all, but a real member of the film crew.
By the way, the film failed at the box office, and the author himself called it "idiotic." But his main lesson was that sometimes what works on the pages of a book shouldn't be brought to life. Even for the sake of a beautiful picture.
