Pick Me Up

In PICK ME UP, a truck-driving serial killer (Michael Moriarty) meets his match in a deadly drifter (Warren Kole). Fairuza Balk plays the young woman caught between these two madmen and their battle for homicidal supremacy.

One of the better MASTERS OF HORROR offerings, it has a nice mix of terror and humor. It also has a ghoulish twist at the end.

Director Larry Cohen does some of the best work he's done in years. Re-teaming with Moriarty is a big plus. These guys always made great low-budget horror films together...

++++++++++Landis: "Deer Woman"- The pictures are really simple but still interesting. The approach is entertaining and humorist in just the right amounts. You can see that here is a true professional at work. The style fits perfectly in the tradition of episode-movies, but it also takes it forward and works as an independent movie. The acting is good enough, the cutting, the "flow" and the script are tight and thought. The actors are unknown (to me at least), but undoubtedly because of good directing, interesting, and they do their bit of the work very well. This is the most humorous of these episodes this far. There is also a good amount of sweet eye-candy (in the form of a woman). Landis manages to fill his one hour-space with quite a lot of events, there is not a single boring moment. Again this shows how much you can include in such a relatively short time. Time flies when you watch this kind of entertainment, and it leaves you wanting more.

++++++++++McGee: "Sick Girl"- Never heard of this director. In the beginning this movie looks and feels like some "young adults" soap opera series. There is some well made computer effects/visuals (I mean the bugs). Again David Fischer's production design looks good, this time there is a lot of pastel colours being used. Music is quite terrible (also kind of "young adults"-poprock), but it fits to the context. The characters are repulsively dumb, I mean totally brainless. They are not very believable. The script is childish, I don't know what age the guy who wrote it is, and what he wanted to achieve, if anything. But also the directing and acting is really bad and incompetent. For sure it is meant to be campy, but it's campy in not at all funny or interesting way. There is a staged feeling also in the lighting and other visuals, which I don't quite understand, but I assume that it has something to do with the idea of keeping it campy. Maybe there's supposed to be some "humor" in the script also, but it don't make me laugh. And what's the most interesting thing: There is no horror, none, which makes it little hard to understand why this is included in the "Masters of Horror"-series in the first place. Useless fast-forward garbage. But there always has to be some flops in this kinda series.

++++++++++Cohen: "Pick Me Up"- I know Larry Cohen has done some interesting work, but I haven't seen any of them. Again, right from the beginning, this seems to be one of the better (actually most of them are in this category) movies in this great series. Eye candy (this time in form of Fairuza Balk, seen before in American History X) intelligent-enough script. Again you see that the director is not a first-timer and he knows his instrument perfectly. Again the story takes place somewhere in the "deepest" parts of North-America, this time in the middle of beautiful nature. Good acting and casting. Strange, interesting, and multi-dimensional (=living and real) characters. Inventive and odd plot. I like the liveliness and unpredictability of this movie, it really has it's own style. This director clearly has his own vision of movie making. Small things make this more creative horror than most of the horror you'll see: Not necessarily the plot, but the very subtle nuances in the directing and acting. It really takes some special skills to do something like this. The actor who is playing the truck driver is really good, his character is maybe the most important element in the succeeding of this work.

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

Who would have thought serial killers would be territorial? The story starts out when a bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere (of course), when a seemingly friendly truck driver offers to take the passengers to the nearby trading post. Only two passengers take him up on the offer, while two more stay with the bus along with the bus driver. One passenger decides to start walking by her self. Meanwhlie a friendly cowboy walks up to the bus and asks for a ride. It turns out the cowboy and the truck driver are both serial killers! Walker who hitch hikes, and Wheeler who drives picking up hitch hikers. After they dispose of their victims the fight over who gets to kill the last survivor of the bus. And like a good western we have a show down to see who gets to finish the victim off.

This is definitely not scary but it is a good fun movie to watch. It's got some funny moments, some suspense, and a message: Don't hitch hike and don't pick up hitch hikers! Oh! The ending really makes believe in karma!

Larry Cohen has accomplished some wonderful things, including "Q: The Winged Serpent" and "It's Alive." His horror films go beyond Indy B-movie to touch something innately human, somewhat like an early Stephen King novel. Unfortunately, all of this is missing from "Pick Me Up," the weakest Masters of Horror entry so far: a meandering mess of Moriarty and nonsense. Although there are a few short moments of satisfying splatter, the rest just serves as an attempt to give Michael Moriarty one last chance to resurrect his career.

Sad to say, if this is the best the Master can come up with now, perhaps Cohen should stick to writing scripts like "Cellular," and letting someone else direct.