Fabulous Films, out now

An everyman finds himself pursued by a monster truck…

This is one of those Steven Spielberg films that lots of people know about, but rather less have seen. The 1971 TV movie, expanded and brought to the cinema screen the following year, stars Dennis Weaver, around the same time as he began playing Marshall McCloud (well, there you go…), as a salesman who gets on the wrong side of a truck driver. For the next 90 minutes or so, McCloud’s David Mann is hunted down by the truck – it lies in wait for him, pursues him, tries to run him down and otherwise makes clear that there’s only one way this is going to end.

Note, I say the truck – Spielberg successfully depersonalises the pursuit, so it comes down to man vs. machine, with shots of the truck grille filling the screen contrasted with Weaver’s face in close-up. We never see more of the driver than his boots – and even that’s more to set up a sequence at the diner than as an indication as to character.

The Fabulous Films edition is the theatrical widescreen version, and also contains an interview with Spielberg that contains (unrestored) clips in the TV ratio – and it’s interesting that some of the framing of the shots in those are even more terrifying than the widescreen.

If your interest in this is piqued, there’s a link on the Wikipedia page to the TV movie script – and there’s also a fascinating update of the story by Stephen King and Joe Hill, Throttle/Road Rage, worth searching out in either print or graphic novel form.

Verdict: A terrific and terrifying tale. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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