Wilmington-shot 'Scream,' 'Maximum Overdrive' memorialized on YouTube's The Daily Woo

It's been more than 35 years since the schlocky Wilmington-shot horror movie "Maximum Overdrive" debuted in theaters back in 1986. But what might've seemed at first like a forgettable, if occasionally fun film, has achieved something close to immortality, not to mention a cult following, online.

The latest internet action keeping our collective memory of "Maximum Overdrive" alive? A video on The Daily Woo, a YouTube account with more than 600,000 subscribers. Run by a YouTuber who goes by the moniker Adam the Woo, the series features "everything from abandoned theme parks to movie locations to wacky roadside attractions."

The Daily Woo recently featured a video about locations of the fifth "Scream" movie, which was filmed in Wilmington and released earlier this year.

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Posted Friday, as of Valentine's Day the half-hour video titled "Maximum Overdrive Filming Locations" was close to surpassing 50,000 views.

"Maximum Overdrive" was based on "Trucks," a novella by Stephen King about a passing comet that somehow causes all manner of motor vehicles and machinery to gain sentience. The machines' first instinct, naturally, is to start attacking and murdering any human that crosses their path.

The movie is the only one that King, the author of dozens of books and screenplays, ever directed. King himself has joined the cultural chorus mocking "Maximum Overdrive," admitting that, not only was he an overmatched and inexperienced director, but was also in the throes of a cocaine addiction he later sought treatment for.

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The movie was a box office flop, and it also got two Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzie, nominations: one for Emilio Estevez as Worst Actor and one for King as Worst Director.

Still, as the Daily Woo videos shows, "Maximum Overdrive" — which stars Estevez, Yeardley Smith (of "The Simpsons") and character actor Pat Hingle, who became a Wilmington resident after making the movie here — has its devotees.

The YouTube video takes an exhaustive, very deep dive into some of the movie's locations, starting with a former ATM at the since-demolished Wachovia bank downtown on Princess Street between Water and Front streets. (King himself makes a cameo in that scene, in which the ATM's screen calls the writer an unprintable name.)

Adam the Woo and a mohawked video cohort named Scott also visit the Isabel Holmes Bridge (which they mistakenly call the Isabella Holmes, something that even locals do from time to time). In the movie, the drawbridge opens up, spilling cars into the Cape Fear River.

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They also stop by the Wilmington neighborhood at 19th and Princess where one character is killed, and the neighborhood at Shirley Road and Kenwood Avenue, where various scenes take place, including one with a lawnmower that partly blinded the movie's cinematographer and led to a lawsuit.

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Also featured in the video is The Kicking Mule, a store at Fletcher and Lanvale roads in Leland that plays a gas station in "Maximum Overdrive."

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In addition, the video spends some time off U.S. 17, where the movie built a set that served as the Dixie Boy truck stop. The set was torn down after filming was finished, but thanks to the Daily Woo, the site has been memorialized for posterity.

Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: 'Maximum Overdrive,' 'Scream' honored on YouTube's The Daily Woo