Recap / The Nostalgia Critic S 7 E 20

Release: October 7, 2014

Film: Maximum Overdrive

Tagline: Nostalgia-Ween begins with the only film Stephen King DIRECTED! Oh boy...

This review contains examples of:

• Brick Joke: Reappearance of the "4" prop.
• Call-Back: His ringtone is the repeating laugh from It.
• The Cameo: For this year's Nostalgia-Ween opening, JonTron appears to "kill" the Critic as revenge for having also reviewed Foodfight!.
• Clickbait Gag: Played with. One of the horrible side-effects of the Stephen King Tropes is that all advertisement (clickbait or otherwise) talks only about Maine.
• Discussed Trope: The Critic accidentally summons the Troperaiser, who points out the tropes in the film.
  • Stephen King Trope #127: The Religious Nut
  • Stephen King Trope #2647: Redneck Characters
  • Stephen King Trope #36498: Religious nut dies
  • Stephen King Trope #385: Hypocritical faith
  • Stephen King Trope #2: Twist Ending
  • Maine!
  • One of the actors over-acting (the waitress going crazy and yelling at the trucks "WE MADE YOU!!!").
• Gory Discretion Shot
  Critic: Why are you looking at your hand while stabbing me?
• Mood Dissonance: The "Stephen King Time" title card, which has a black-and-white cut-out of Stephen King — one of the greatest authors of horror stories — in front of a cheerful, colorful background with the sound of kids cheering.
• Running Gag: The Critic is still learning to balance manly violence with feminine elegance ever since his The Princess Diaries 2 review by reading Emma.
  • The return of the "Zuul, Motherfucker!" (as "Zuul, mother-trucker!") gag, because of the appearance of a possessed Mack truck that has its bulldog hood ornament's eyes glowing red.
  • "I just wanted someone to Stephen King right" (said by the man himself in the film's ad, because he was also the director).
• Shout-Out:
  • The beginning, with JonTron murdering the Critic is a reference to the opening of Halloween (1978), where Michael murders his sister Judith.
  • The whole point with the Troperaisers (Cenobyte-type Humanoid Abominations that worship Stephen King tropes).
  • The critic calling the lead truck's Green Goblin face as something scarier than what Sam Raimi cooked up.
  • The death threat of the Only Mostly Dead religious fanatic ("You get me out of this ditch, or by Jesus I'll kill you!") compared to the Big Bad of Howard the Duck ("You can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!") because they sound alike (that is, a high-pitched croak).
  • The Alien Sky of the green clouds that are constantly on the background (and which the Critic calls at one point as "the Earth farting") prompt a sketch during the night sequences of the movie of Gozer the Gozerian's drunk sister mourning the other abomination's destruction at the hands of a bunch of comedians.
• So Bad, It's Good: Invoked with the Critic's final opinion on the film, believing that it's actually enjoyable as a B-movie.
• Stealth Parody: invoked The Critic theorizes that Maximum Overdrive was this.
• Take That!:
  Stephen King (on a cameo, dealing with a vengeful automated teller): Honey! This machine just called me an asshole!
  Critic (as wife): Obviously, it watched Under the Dome.
  (After a montage of Yeardley Smith's character doing a variety of high-pitched screams): You know, suddenly the idea of slitting my throat with her (Lisa Simpson's) spiky hair doesn't sound that bad.
  • The review ends with The Critic and the Troperaiser discussing tropes normally used by Leonardo DiCaprio (which are just as annoying as the King ones).
• Visual Pun: The foreshadowing is actually four-shadowing: A numeral 4 in a shadow.
• Wacky Sound Effect: The Critic dubs over the waitress's cartoonish performance with appropriate sound effects.

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We made YOU!!