trashgang
Ahaaa, this is a special entry in the Masters Of Horrors series. There's almost no blood to spot and still it's pure horror made only by characterisation and especially done by Michael Moriarty who plays the trucker. The way he acted levitates this episode to a higher level.Even as the story is simple and the ending is predictable I still enjoyed it. When a bus breaks down on a highway two serial killers are trying to help them but they don't know that they are both serial killers. It's a game of hunting down and being hunted until the end. Sure I said that there's almost no blood and that's correct, only the two in the van are really slaughtered, one sliced and the girl being tortured and skinned alive in a motel room. But it surely never becomes gory. This really needs the characters and it really worked out fine. One of the better episodes.Gore 1/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 4/5 Comedy 0/5
boudreas
Welcome to serial killer alley, which is above tornado alley and below the snow belt. Too bad Fairuza Balk has to do these jobs now that she has been stricken with the ravages of age. The two serial killers are not very unique, at first I though they were working together. They both seem to waste their time talking, and assuring their prey is safe, then kill them. The cowboy cut up what could have been some great TnA opportunity, cause she flashes a nice up skirt, but it was the pg 13 kind. The ending was very predictable, as everyone you encounter in serial killer alley is well you figured it out a serial killer. I gave this one 4 tits out of 10 because Fairuza Balk was in it and the acting was alright. Thank god they killed that fake ass lizard lip blond right from the get go.
Witchfinder General 666
Larry Cohen who has enriched the world of Exploitation cinema as the director of films like "Black Caesar" and "Q: The Winged Serpent" and, most memorably as the writer of films like "Maniac Cop" delivers one of the most outrageously entertaining "Masters of Horror" episodes with "Pick Me Up". While this eleventh episode of the first season does not quite reach the originality and ingenuity of the most brilliant entries to the series (such as Takashi Miike's "Imprint"), it does deliver what a "Masters of Horror" episode should: permanent suspense and genuine creepiness, paired with moments of incredibly morbid humor. A young woman named Stacia (played by sexy Fairuza Balk) is part of a bus-load of travelers, which, after breaking down in the middle of nowhere, bizarrely gets stuck between two psychopathic serial killers... I don't want to give too much away, but I can almost guarantee that people who like the show will also like this. The episode is suspenseful and creepy from the first minute, and sometimes spiced up with macabre humor, but never to a degree that would lessen the suspense). Fairuza Balk is sexy as always and fits perfectly in her role. Prolific actor Michael Moriarty and the less prolific Warren Kole are also very good in their roles. Along with the very first episode, "Incident On And Off A Mountain Road", "Pick Me Up" is probably the MoH episode that has the most genuine B-Movie-feeling, which should make it highly enjoyable to my fellow Horror/Exploitation fans. Overall, Larry Cohen is certainly not the most masterly director in the "Masters Of Horror" franchise (masters like Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter and Takashi Miike as directors of other episodes make this quite impossible), but his episode "Pick Me Up" proves that he is a more than adept maker of genuine solid Horror. "Pick Me Up" is a creepy and deliciously macabre entry to the series which MoH-fans should certainly not miss.
farfisamaniac
Having had the misfortune of watching this, I can now say that I have no illusions about the decline of civilisation anymore. Where to start? Is it more disgusting that someone actually sat down and dreamt this filth up? Or the fact that the moronic Amerikan public laps this up? Gratuitous spilling of blood, murder, amoral stances, the glorifying of violence against women, it's all here, and all in the name of 'entertainment'. I found it rather fitting that a snake plays a role in here- it reminded me of the following Ambrose Bierce quote (a true master of horror, by the way- even for an American):"Its horrible head... the definition of the wide, brutal jaw, and the idiotlike forehead..." - what else can one say? The perfect description of the junk-food-scoffing, Coke-guzzling, brain-damaged Amerikan idiot who will enjoy this, and who provides the willing audience for Mr Cohen and his like. I would have given this a negative score, but sadly this is not possible. So one star, and 'awful' it will have to be, and that's a more than generous assessment.
AD
