MOTHER TRUCKIN’ MAY: TWISTER’S REVENGE! (1988)
“I wanna watch the trucks.”
While a sub-$100k budget for your average stunt-heavy motion picture can’t rightly be called “generous,” it’d be a king’s ransom for a bunch of kids playing toy monster trucks and coming up with a crazy plot to go along with some wanton backyard destruction. Luckily for us all, the heart of 1988’s TWISTER’S REVENGE lies firmly in that childlike absurdity to the point that even today’s most wired kid will get some kind of kick out of its obvious jokes, nail-biting stunts, and its Big Trucks and Big Tank.
This feat is all thanks to its director, Bill Rebane. Latvia-born but with a healthy chunk of his formative years spent in the American Midwest, after honing his craft in Germany, Rebane eventually landed in Wisconsin. Much like Earl Owensby established his studio in North Carolina to easily make his low-budget visions, Rebane turned some of his property into a fully functioning studio. These unassuming roots gave us B-movie classics such as THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION and BLOOD HARVEST; he also produced a sasquatch movie in the 1970s, THE CAPTURE OF BIGFOOT, which automatically enters him into the pantheon of American heroes.
Our plot is blessedly simple: Three dumb-dumb redneck car mechanics—our Dennis Hopper-lookalike with a Steve Buscemi voice Kelly, Bear, and Dutch—overhear our hero, Dave (Dean West of BLOOD HARVEST), mentioning with aw-shucks pride that his truck is ultra cool and expensive thanks to all of its fancy computer parts that his super smart wife created. Dreams of a pawn shop jackpot dancing in their heads, these particular three stooges (played with full-tilt goofiness by David Alan Smith, Jay Gjernes, and Richard Luka) decide to weasel their way into some quick cash by getting the technological marvel for themselves. Of course, if this were easy, it’d be boring, so these guys immediately bumble their way through children’s carnival rides just to get to the bleachers to watch the truck in action. Logic like this is the audience’s vehicle for this tale, so hold on tight.
After some van-disrupting hijinks, the good ol’ boys actually manage to kidnap the computer genius wife, Sherry (played by one-and-done actress Meredith Orr) and leave a ridiculous ransom note for Dave to find. Unluckily for these goobers, Mr. Twister (named after a real monster truck series based right in Wisconsin) has overheard these developments and found them distasteful to his logic circuits. You guessed it in one: That monster truck tags itself in to help rescue the clever little lady and put those three little piggies back into the pen where they belong.
Outfitted with artificial intelligence that’s as sassy as it is dapper, Mr. Twister’s classic robo-voice is still able to impart a general air of waving a handkerchief disdainfully while it talks. Having a classic dry wit shouldn’t work in a monster truck so much so that I shouldn’t even need to type it, but god bless it, it works. Genuinely funny and weaponizing logic almost as lovably as a Vulcan, Mr. Twister deserved to break out and star in a series of increasingly gimmicky children’s films. If we can make a wisecracking monster truck come to life, why not send it on further adventures? Ain't no rules say a monster truck can't go to space camp.
For his part, Dave is a great straight-man foil. Representing the average audience member, he’s skeptical but not stupid, and this unlikely duo makes putting up with the cartoonish bad guys a lot more palatable. At one point, he offers the monster truck a valium, so he has a touch of sass himself. Referred to as “pretty boy” by his foils, he’s just an alright guy who doesn’t annoy the audience or get in the monster truck’s way, and that’s plenty for a movie like this.
Mr. Twister pulls no punches nor slams on the brakes. You’ll see cars owned by unruly barflies get flattened; JAWS-like stealth stalking and surprise attacks; an obliterated outhouse; aiding in blowing up an actual house; a cannonball for the ages into an aboveground pool; bazooka attacks ducked, and, finally, a battle against an actual tank that includes a chase through downtown. Seeing these grown men galavant around a junkyard and through neighborhoods with their giant automobile destruction porn nearly brought a tear to my eye: This country used to know what a value meal truly meant.
I personally want 1983’s WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD’s talking motorcycle to be Italy’s answer to our inevitable AI/vehicle future, and I want Wisconsin’s own TWISTER’S REVENGE to be the United States’ version over something too polished, like a KNIGHT RIDER. TWISTER’S REVENGE is weird and silly, but it’s also earthy and startlingly likeable. We’re in dark times, and if Stephen King’s perfect MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE shows the inevitable evil turn that too-smart cars absolutely will take against humans, then Rebane’s outing shows us the deliriously optimistic bright side.
A mischievous teen comedy for the AARP set. A children’s film for carnies. A Troma movie for Lutherans. I don’t usually say that a movie genuinely has something for everyone, as it’s so rarely true, but if TWISTER’S REVENGE holds no treasure for you, then you might want to consider that you’ve become too highfalutin lately. It’s broad—REAL broad—but its everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach is endearing, and it has a hell of a good time with it. TWISTER’S REVENGE feels as though it would buy you a beer if it could, and that’s what I want, expect, and respect from only the finest of Wisconsin-based monster truck-centric entertainment.
