Three on a Meathook

It's surprise after surprise in this elegant shocker from auteur writer/director Bill "The Girdle" Girdler. This is the kind of high-speed, chase-riddled thrillfest that others can only dream of emulating. Another masterpiece from an American original!

Ultra-low-budget, skid row version of Psycho lands firmly in the category of so-bad-its-good!

Why is it that every time handsome, young Billy brings a girl home that she ends up butchered?

One of a number of drive-in horror flicks that William Girdler made in the '70's, this one being fairly memorable. As with many films of its budget, the raw, natural settings add to the moody believability of the picture. James Pickett turns in a decent performance as the films main character, who seems to have some problems indeed. Charles Kissinger plays off well enough as Pickett's odd father. Girdler gives the film a gritty, but nicely moody music score.

As with many exploitation films of its day, there's plenty of gore and skin to see. After all, what would you expect from a movie with this memorable title!

All in all, Three on a Meathook is a film that's certainly not for all tastes! Fans of the B genre, especially from this era will likely enjoy this horrific and unintentional funny flick.

** 1/2 out of ****

A young man is terrified to bring anyone home because, when he does, they always turn up dead. Is it his jealous father or maybe one of his alternate personalities? Everything is tested when he finally meets the girl of his dreams and wants to bring her home to meet daddy.

Three on a Meathook is Psycho filtered through a dusty and grimy grindhouse lens. You look at the way this is shot and it's a miracle that it makes any sense at all. Not a lot of coverage, all the actors seem amateurish, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn the main farmhouse location was given to the filmmakers for free by a relative or friend. That said, this is an interesting revamp of some classic themes and ideas and I found myself glued to the screen.

A group of shapely girls get stranded near an isolated farmhouse(so far so formulaic)and are given shelter by a young man and his father who inhabit the house. The father wants the girls out, hinting at disaster("Billy, I don't want to be unreasonable, but you know how you get around women...")which of course comes true when the chicks get the axe...literally.

Okay, so it looks to be shaping up to be a run-of-the-mill gore film, but insert a love interest for the confounded Billy, a college-dropout-turned-cocktail-waitress, and the love story element is underway. The couple wander through meadows of goldenrod while the girl explains all this(the college drop-out bit)and Billy agrees to invite his new squeeze and her friend to his farm, where there's more talky character development(on the part of the friend, who spouts some kind of florid anti-Vietnam rhetoric in regard to her dead boyfriend)and all the horror of the killings is revealed! And the epilogue is unusual in that it actually gives promise for Billy and his girlfriend's future!

Okay, so maybe it's a stretch to say this is a decent movie, but come on, how many gore films even attempt any character development? You almost feel sorry for Billy and his plight. The dialogue leans toward more overripeness than camp, and so the dialogue seems more like TV movie of the week fare than Ed Wood. Still, it is an unusual flick.

I came across this movie in Psychotronic Movie Guide Vol I, and was surprised I could watch it on YouTube. I have done this for Ms. 45, went a few years back to the movie house re release and bought the Blu Ray. What I say on YouTube was unimpressive, the script really was the problem, as the story does not flow as in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I suspect this was the director first or one of his early movies and did not attend film school, and this is true for many independent directors who learned what they could from other directors and production staff including Clint Eastwood. While TCM plays like a reality movies TOaMC is more like a HS dropouts nightmare and I would not have done any better. Watch it, just to say you included it in your viewing history of B movies, but try to watch it free the first time before you invest in a copy.