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story identification - Sentient truck with living flesh human mouth built into dashboard?


Does anyone remember the title of this (possibly straight to video) movie from the late 1980's / early 1990's?




  • Live action.

  • English dialogue, but this could have been a dub - the credits indicated that it was made in Hungary.

  • The opening theme was a monotonous song - the lyric "to reach the end of the line" was repeated a lot.

  • The setting was an authoritarian police state, possibly post apocalyptic.

  • The protagonist was the driver of a sentient truck.

  • The truck's name was "Monster".

  • The truck could speak via a living flesh human mouth built into the dashboard.

  • The opening titles may have had a wireframe animation of the truck.

  • The protagonist rescues a young girl and agrees to escort her to a sanctuary.


  • The protagonist dies towards the end, and his role of driving the truck is taken over by the young girl that he rescued.



Answer



This is Terminus (1987).



In the year 2037, an international sport has been established, wherein a driver of a truck must cross the country and arrive at a designated terminus, while confronting obstacles and enemies along the way. The lead truck, named "Monster", has been designed by a boy genius (Gabriel Damon) and is to be piloted through the course by a woman named Gus (Karen Allen). Eventually, the truck's AI fails and Gus ends up in uncharted territories. There, she encounters leather-clad "hoods" (hoodlums) that torture her and eventually kill her. Prior to dying, she befriends a fellow prisoner (Johnny Hallyday), who later uses the truck to rescue himself and a young orphan. Meanwhile, the boy genius watches them by an artificial satellite so that he may see how well the truck's software works. The conclusion reveals that as he watches the truck, he is himself watched and evaluated by the sinister doctor (Jürgen Prochnow) who cloned him.



You can see the truck in the clip below, along with the dashboard mouth






For the record, the song you're referencing is "End of the Line" by Stan Ridgway, specially commissioned for the film along with the "Love Story theme".



There's no one here who shares my views
Or sees the way I can see
But there's just one thing that you'll understand
You'll have to even up with me
At the end of the line (x2)







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