Masters of Horror (TV Series) Pick Me Up (2006) User Reviews

The Road of the Psychopaths

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 9 June 2007]

When a bus breaks down in a desert road surrounded by woods, the passenger Stacia (Fairuza Balk) decides to walk ahead 20 km to a motel. The travelers Birdy (Laurene Landon) and Danny (Malcolm Kennard) get a lift with the deranged serial-killer truck driver Jim Wheeler (Michael Moriarty) to return to a dinning place and are killed. The paranoid Marie (Kristie Marsden) and her husband stay in the bus with the driver waiting for help. When the sadistic serial–killer hitchhiker Walker (Warren Kole) comes to the bus, he kills the trio. Later in the motel, Stacia is disputed by the two psychopaths.

"Pick Me Up" is a tale of very black humor, where a two-lane road is disputed by serial-killers in a very weird dispute. The movie uses all the clichés of the genre and is funny, and even the names of the two psychopaths (Walker and Wheeler) are hilarious. The surprising conclusion is a big joke and homage to Larry Cohen's "The Ambulance". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Estrada da Morte" ("Road of Death")

Everyone's a killer, baby!

[Coventry · 7/10 · 5 August 2006]

Larry Cohen has been a 'Master of Horror' especially during the 70's and 80's (with sublime movies on his repertoire like "It's Alive", "God Told Me To" and "Q – The Winged Serpent"), but starting from the 1990's, he merely became the writer of popular mainstream thrillers like "Guilty as Sin" and the more recent "Phone Booth". It has actually been a while since Cohen delivered some genuine horror, so I didn't really know what to expect from his contribution to this series. His episode "Pick Me Up" certainly isn't the best entry in the series, but nevertheless a very entertaining little movie with an original plot and a fair share of gore. The plot revolves on a showdown between two sadistic serial killers and the stake is the last remaining passenger of a bus that broke down in the middle of nowhere. The oldest killer (deliciously played by Michael Moriarty) is a trucker whose victims are usually the hitch-hikers he picks up and the other one is a hitch-hiking drifter who kills the people that offer him a ride. A premise like this could have resulted in a very suspenseful cat-and-mouse game, but Larry Cohen and scriptwriter David Schow (creater of "The Crow") preferred to make it a sick black comedy with some grotesque plot twists and insane characters. Typical serial-killer situations and clichés seem to added on purpose and there are loads of subtle references towards classic horror films for the genre-specialist to discover. The deserted two-lane highway running through the backwoods forms a great setting. Sadly, the denouement goes ONE step beyond the acceptable.

Satire and character--not gore--drives 'Pick Me Up'

[Jonny_Numb · 7/10 · 3 November 2006]

Like John Landis' 'Deer Woman,' Larry Cohen's contribution to the "Masters of Horror" series coasts on the director's pitch-perfect dark humor. There are few scares in 'Pick Me Up,' but a strong satire of serial-killer clichés (in this case, the hitcher and the hitched) and a layered character study that is quite fun to watch unfold. Wheeler (Michael Moriarty) is a semi driver who picks up hitchhikers and slaughters them; Walker (Warren Kole) is a hitcher who murders his rides; and Independent Woman Fairuza Balk is the tough heroine who runs afoul of the duo. While Cohen may seem like a wild-card addition to the series, 'Pick Me Up' injects an intellectual angle into the proceedings that is refreshing (especially in light of the "gore = more" approach most of the episodes have taken). While this episode lacks Cohen's trademark 'guerrila' style, he hits the right notes of irony and absurd comedy in David J. Schow's script, as when the two killers (united in Wheeler's truck) stop as a rattlesnake crosses the road; or when Walker tortures a woman in a motel room, putting a quarter in the 'Magic Fingers' as porn plays on the TV; or a climactic fight between killers over their prey. The performances of Moriarty, Kole, and Balk are uniformly spectacular, possessing a true knowledge of character that adds much to the episode as a whole.

(Side Note: anyone collecting the MOH DVDs has come to expect the usual supplements, but 'Pick Me Up' contains a highly entertaining interview with Cohen, plus a surprising number of past collaborators offering insightful and often hilarious recollections.)

6.5 out of 10

The "Rodney Dangerfield" of B-Flicks Shoots and Scores! Well, Almost...

[cchase · 14 March 2006]

Poor Larry Cohen. The man is responsible for establishing some of the most original B-pics in the cult movie firmament, (IT'S ALIVE!, MANIAC COP, GOD TOLD ME TO, the list goes on), yet he barely ever got the same respect as a Roger Corman or a Jonathan Demme. Whatever. He still has the chops to 'kick out the jams' with recent efforts like CELLULAR and PHONE BOOTH, and he shows with this MOH entry that he's still going strong.

Screenwriter David Schow does him a big favor by providing a larger-than-life duo of mythic characters ripped straight from urban legend/campfire tales and plunked right down into your living room...where you can watch them from the grateful safety of your comfy couch.

A transit busload of unfortunate stereotypes breaks down in the middle of Northeast Bumble-you-know-what, and have the rotten luck of meeting cute with not one, but TWO psychopaths for the price of one! There's Wheeler, the amiable curmudgeon of a trucker who has one helluva hobby: he loves to 86 people who ask him for rides. The other is a ruggedly handsome Man-In-Black named Walker. His M.O.? He's a hitcher who kills people who pick him up.

Anybody worth their weight in Friday THE 13TH and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET boxed sets knows how this is going to turn out, and for the majority of the bus riders it does, save for one independent-minded Goth grrl named Stacy, played by Trivial Pursuit question extraordinaire Fairuza Balk.

Yes, PICK ME UP does have a kind of "been there, done that" feel to it, but it's also sort of comforting, after some of the wild misfires that have come before in this series. Plus, Cohen knows how to work with actors and get the best out of them. Where Balk is the only one who has a tendency to grate on the nerves, (the whole Goth grrl thing is SOOO 'last decade'), it's so great to see him team up with his old buddy from Q, THE WINGED SERPENT and THE STUFF, the wonderfully eccentric Michael Moriarty as the trucker, Wheeler. Like his contemporaries, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken and of course, Jack Nicholson, you never know what to expect from Michael. Even in a movie that stinks to high heaven, he manages to keep his performances sharp, his characters interesting.

Ditto Warren Kole as Walker, whose work I have never seen before now. It makes me wish that he'd somehow been discovered before any versions of Stephen King's THE STAND had been filmed, because THIS is how Randall Flagg should've been played. His aw-shucks charm even as he's skinning some poor young thang makes Walker that much more chilling, and he holds his own well on-screen with the grizzled vet Moriarty in their scenes together. They are so connected in fact, that poor Fairuza just fades into the woodwork.

The length of the ep is just about right, and it has one of those endings that makes you chuckle at your TV set, "Oh, no! I can't believe they went THERE!" The point that every predator can become someone's prey is crisply made with a NIGHT GALLERY-style finish, and has me looking forward to what Larry Cohen, (teamed hopefully again with Moriarty), will come up with next. Though hardly the best of the bunch, you can count on getting at least a little 'boost' from PICK ME UP. **1/2 out of **** stars.

Clash of the Serial Killers

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 6/10 · 5 February 2009]

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.

good alteration on the hitcher series

[wrlang · 7/10 · 11 December 2006]

Pick Me Up is from the Masters of Horror collection and is about a hitcher / road kill hugger that takes offense to a bus drivers desire to spice up the traveling by hitting animals trying to cross the road. The hitcher finds the bus and takes his anger out on the driver and those on board. A young girl in the bus just misses being hitcher bait several times until… A trucker also looking for the hitcher to exact some revenge comes into the act and uses the young girl as bait. Great acting makes this well directed film a big success in my mind as the pain of the actors comes through loud and clear. Not for anyone who doesn't like some blood and partial nudity.

Fun on the run

[ctomvelu1 · 7/10 · 19 October 2010]

Essentially, what we have here are two competing serial killers working in a remote area. Wheeler (Moriarty) drives a big rig as he hunts for victims while Walker (Kole) hoofs it as he targets his victims. Caught in the middle is Stacia (Balk) a young woman who is stranded in the backwoods after the bus she is a passenger on breaks down. There are several very funny moments in a creepy way, like Stacia thinking a couple in the motel room next to hers are having the sex of their lives. I probably don't have to tell you what's actually going on, other than to mention that our merry killers are nearby. The eye-popping finale contains a huge and comical twist. Moriarty is the main reason to watch this flick. He has always been an amazing actor who clearly made a huge mistake when he pulled out of LAW AND ORDER early on.

Very bad episode

[fabulousrice · 2/10 · 10 December 2006]

I am very disappointed at Fairuza Balk for being in this episode. Although I haven't seen all the episodes of Masters Of Horror yet, this one is the one I've liked the least so far, mainly because I find it empty of serious plot elements, but full of gratuitous violence. The story is very lacking, and although I appreciate the main idea of this series of horror made for TV films, the duration of the episodes seems to be a real problem not just for viewers but also for directors and screenwriters who have to create a "scary" or gory film that lasts around 50 minutes. What they will be tempted to do, and do here, is to build their films on gratuitous and senseless violence. After the first 15 minutes of this one, when both the trucker and the hunter are definitely presented as being moronic killers and sick in the head, what is there to expect? Nothing else happens than an increasing build-up of violence, which not only is not scary, but even bores you to death because it's so uninteresting and there's really nothing at stake worth caring for. Ugly to watch, too, which is almost true for all the episodes. The cinematography seems inexistent, the music is crap. It's just north-American TV at its worst.

Michael Moriarty carries this episode

[trashgang · 8/10 · 19 June 2013]

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

Okay, it's not THAT bad

[Pet_Rock · 6/10 · 2 September 2006]

From the maker of such schlocky, cheesy flicks like It's Alive, God Told Me To, Q, The Stuff, Maniac Cop, Wicked Stepmother, and Uncle Sam comes

PICK ME UP

Two serial killers (Michael Moriarty, Warren Kole) are in a sort of competition to kill off the many people stuck on a broken down bus (Laurene Landon, Malcolm Kennard, Tom Pickett and more). However, it gets a little harder when they try and kill tough girl Stacia (Fairuza Balk)

Well, I was hearing a lot of bad reviews about this, so I wasn't sure how smart it was of me to pick this to be my first "Masters of Horror" episode. Luckily, I wasn't let down.

While there's one real good jump scene, the movie is actually more funny than it is scary, but that's the case of all Larry Cohen films.

So don't come into it thinking "creepy, scary". Come into it thinking "fun, cheesy" and than you'll have a smashing time.

So good. Until...spoiler alert

[kelticman · 4/10 · 24 June 2007]

I have to say I would have rated this as one of the best horror shorts of all time if it was not for the last 20 seconds.

Fairuza was Great. Micheal was so fun as wheeler. I like how both the killers were not sympathetic characters..it would have been cheap to make one of them an antihero.

I have to admit that as a good watch, this is a GREAT movie. Great pacing. The idea of two dueling serial killers is a statistical stretch.

But I bought it.

The stretch I could not buy was the dumb ending. It was very tales of the crypt. The dumb ending really cheapened the film. An ending like that was cute for the first 100 tales of the crypt gotcha endings, but it is SO Cliché to end a horror movie that way.

4 serial killers on the same stretch of highway? whatever

Smiling faces lie!

[super marauder · 8/10 · 8 June 2013]

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!

There's a Killer on the Road...

[nikitalinivenko · 6/10 · 27 February 2020]

Not only is this the best episode of Masters of Horror, but I would say by far the best movie in Larry Cohen's rather piss-poor, unremarkable B-movie career ("The Stuff" ranks up there with the worst movies I've ever seen. Conversely, though, 'Black Caesar' was one of the better Blaxploitation movies of the 70's). The location photography was a highlight, I love the northwest rural road setting and this movie makes effective use of it, Michael Moriarty is at his very best here as a charmingly deadly big-rig driver and pretty much carries the whole episode (the second serial killer I felt was a bit more bland and Moriarty completely steals the show from him), and Fairuza Balk is a tough chick in her best role since The Craft. Fairuza gets caught in the middle of a cat-and-mouse game between two serial killers picking off people along the highways of the heavily wooded northwest (including a bus-load of people Balk was travelling with, but ditched when the bus broke down), culminating in her literally sandwiched between the two as they tensely banter in Moriarty's big rig (and a goofy out-of-nowhere ending ripped straight from 'Tales from the Crypt' or better yet, the ending of 'Twilight Zone: The Movie'). All in all, it's a fun, re-watchable video that's a cozy way to kill an hour.

Gory but nonsensical - one of the weakest episodes from Season 1.

[ThrownMuse · 5/10 · 10 October 2007]

Cult director Larry Cohen and mediocre genre scribe David Schow team up for "Pick Me Up," one of the weakest MOH episodes from Season One. The story follows a bunch of travelers whose bus breaks down in an isolated mountainous region. Some opt to go off to the nearest town with a trucker (played by Michael Moriarty, even more obnoxious than usual), some stay at the bus, and one tough-as-nails woman (Fairuza Balk) decides to walk off in the opposite direction on her own. She soon realizes that she's become a killer's prey, but she's unsure of who the killer is. This episode plays with the fear of hitchhiking--of both the hitchhiker and the driver. The story-line starts off decent and it's suspenseful enough, until you actually figure out what's going on. After that, it just descends into absurd nonsense, especially in its last 10 minutes or so. Cohen's trademark sense of black humor doesn't really pop up until the end, and by that point I was ready to throw the towel in. It does have it's high points -- it's fairly violent and the gore effects are well done. And Balk is excellent, as usual, though underused here. So it's gross enough to please horror fans, but it's not particularly original and the twists and turns are stupid, especially considering its otherwise serious tone.

Pick up something else

[Cujo108 · 18 September 2010]

Larry Cohen's entry into the series has to do with a broken down bus and the two serial killers who happen upon it. One of the killers is an old trucker (Cohen regular, Michael Moriarty) who kills anyone he gives a ride to, and the other is a hitchhiker (Warren Kole) who murders those who pick him up. Both set their sights on the lone remaining passenger (Fairuza Balk) of the bus, which leads to a battle of wills to see who can get her first.

This story of two dueling serial killers is perfectly suited for the episodic "Masters of Horror" format, as it's merely a fun little idea with hardly enough material to sustain a feature length film. Throw in Cohen as the master behind this one, and I was expecting to sit back for one of the more entertaining episodes of the series. I have to say that I was disappointed. For starters, it had definite pacing issues. Yes, an hour-long episode dealing with an idea as threadbare as this one suffers from a poor pace. Some of the performances also really brought it down for me. All of the people from the bus (aside from the driver and Balk) were just terrible. Worst acting of the series from these folks, and I wanted them to die immediately so I wouldn't have to put up with it.

Michael Moriarty was fantastic, though. He nailed his role, and Kole was quite good too. I loved the interactions between these two and how they would try to one up each other. We also get a decent helping of morbid humor, and the skinned alive girl was a surprisingly gruesome touch in an otherwise tame episode. As for atmosphere, it was sorely lacking here. Maybe I've just seen too much of British Columbia from this series, and I know it's for budgetary reasons, but I felt that the locations weren't very fitting for the story at hand. Cohen's direction is generally uninspired with the exception of an overhead pan of the rooms during the motel sequence. The absurd ending also fails, all plausibility going right out the window.

"Pick Me Up" needed less of the bus passengers and more of the killers facing off. At least it would've been a bit more entertaining that way. Two good performances, poor episode.

When two fight, the third benefit

[Bored_Dragon · 7/10 · 21 April 2018]

The bus with several passengers breaks down in the middle of nowhere and passengers have three options available: they can stay on the bus and wait for help, hitchhike further or go on foot. Of course, they can not agree and they separate, in order to become an easy prey for a serial killer. This darkly humorous psychological horror takes the classic horror cliche, but it enriches the story by introducing yet another serial killer, and their mutual struggle for the same victims. These two psychopaths are completely different personalities with opposing methods, through which the director Larry Cohen tried to embody opposing political parties in America, and to make a satire of serial killers cliches and horror cliches in general. The idea is phenomenal, as are the twists and surprises that follow, but it isn't elaborated enough and leaves the impression of a shoddy job. The story has a potential for a ten, but unfortunately, this realization does not deserve more than

7/10

I liked it

[jed-estes · 7/10 · 27 October 2006]

This is not as intense as it could be but it does make for a fine hour of T.V. This should have been a feature with more money and a tighter direction, I think this film could have been an American classic if it had been given more production time. I loved the idea of the two serial killers trying to find one another and then both vying for the same victim. This is basically Freddy Vs Jason with less money and generic killers but it plays extremely well. I thought the dissection scene on the bed was very gruesome. This is defiantly one of the better episodes and it has kept wanting more from this series. Hopefully these guys can pull it off for a second year in a row. I have faith.

Slowwww Going, Lame Ending, but Two Really Good Performances

[anthonygiancola24 · 7/10 · 13 February 2021]

Pick Me Up is the eleventh episode of Masters of Horror, directed by Larry Cohen (The Stuff) and written by David Schow, adapted from his own short story. It details a turf war between two serial killers played by Michael Moriarty and Warren Kole, and plays a lot like a western horror. Which is really cool and a change of pace for this series.

This film is a really odd addition to the Masters of Horror series because I actually think that this at times is the scariest episodes. Or rather, the opening sequence has at least thirty seconds that truly unnerved me. A lot of that rests on the shoulders of Moriarty and Kole, both of whom are different types of unsettling as their respective serial killers. Moriarty is especially good, basically playing the American version of the killer from Wolf Creek, charming then terrifying in a matter of seconds. Kole has a different type of charm to him, but in a way that matches his character. I actually really like that the two killers are so far apart in age, so their victims and MO compliment their ages.

The third major character is Stacia, a woman who finds herself caught in the middle between the two of them unwittingly. She's played by Fairuza Balk, who does as much as she can with the little she has to do. The very little, in all honesty. She seems to be being set up as a major player, but then mostly ends up as just another victim.

There are a few scenes that are really gross out disturbing (a motel room scene that has no warning seems to go on forever) left me with a pit in my stomach. It does have this overall sense of dread, and darkness that the film is clearly going for. I mean, it does run into the Masters of Horror problem where the budget makes the whole thing look like a 90s movie that was lost to the ages, but Brian Pearson (the film's cinematographer) manages to pull off a very dark, nihilistic feel to everything. Except there is this one shot that is clearly very old stock footage of the woods that looks SOOOO BAD in comparison to the rest of the film.

It's pacing is pretty slow, there's very little forward momentum, and the ending beat is so lame. The editing is also an issue, there are a few cuts that really stick out as bad and improperly timed. Also, the music just doesn't want to shut up. It's always on, and constantly changing so I could never get used to it. There are so many lone guitar riffs that just go on and on.

So, on the whole, it's a pretty good episode, but I would say only above average for the series.

Larry Cohen... Master of the B Horror Film

[gavin6942 · 5/10 · 30 November 2006]

After a bus breaks down, the occupants end up being caught in a blood war between two serial killers -- Walker, who hitchhikes and kills his victims, and Wheeler (Michael Moriarty), who drives a truck and picks up his victims. The stakes get higher when when one of the passengers turns out to be Fairuza Balk, a tough-as-nails divorcée with a switchblade.

Maybe I just didn't get it, but when I first saw this film, I thought it was really stupid. Two goofball serial killers, admiring each other's work. But no real plot, just one against another. The film doesn't move from A to B, it just sits in one place like a painting. And this has to be a Picasso, because halfway through I still had no idea what I was looking at.

Now, there are some nice touches. The gore is decent, especially one woman who is skinned and cut piece by piece apart. One of the more grisly scenes in a horror movie as far as it being realistic. I mean, what I saw could have actually happened and probably has. And Fairuza Balk is a great casting choice for a darker film. I mean, "The Craft"? "Return to Oz"? She's got the skills. I am not a big fan or anything, but she has a natural goth appeal (although Christina Ricci would be better if you ignore "Cursed".)

But the film has a streak of stupid, beginning to end. The first twenty minutes are wasted with a story that goes nowhere. The end is silly (but fitting for such a silly story). And it's Larry Cohen, so I expected some lack of seriousness... but come on. I really enjoyed Michael Moriarty in Cohen's "Q" and the "It's Alive" movie, but how did the two of them come together to make this? It confounds me!

When my friend Jason and I went to pick it up, we were wondering why it had to be a two-pack with Joe Dante's "Homecoming" when pretty much all the episodes got their own special DVD. Perhaps because this film could never make its money back on DVD sales? Although I did later find and purchase it on its own disc, which I found to be a great deal (for $2.99).

And, in all fairness, the second viewing was better received. I watched it with director's commentary on, and Cohen was able to point out lots of style shots I had missed, and changes he made from the original script. With this in mind, I think the directing was great. The story still has some weaknesses, but the way it was presented deserves some respect. If you saw this and didn't much care for it, I urge you to give it a second chance and pay attention to the camera angles and imagery.

Cohen: Pick me up-brilliant

[Xex-Arachnid · 10/10 · 5 November 2006]

So far, this is the best M.O.H. produced story yet. I never heard of Cohen but he made a good impression on me with this presentation.

If you don't know what this story's about well, it's about two serial killers (one a drifter and another one who's a truck driver) who cross paths in the midst of their killing sprees and then decide to compete for the one remaining person (Fairuza Balk) who was the only one willing to walk 14 miles to the motel instead of waiting for help along with the rest of the passengers once their charter bus broke down.

The story takes place way up in N. America in which I believe to be the greater Washington area because I've either seen a sign that said "Spokane" or heard it in one of the character's dialog. I also believe the truck driver character was once a mafia hit-man because of some said references to New York and the surrounding Borroughs and something about witnesses. Pretty good and the ending is even great.

Death highway

[Fernando-Rodrigues · 4/10 · 21 November 2020]

Bad edition + dumb characters = Masters of Horror, S01 x E11 - Pick Me Up.

Twisted

[kosmasp · 9/10 · 22 June 2010]

I can only guess, why not so many people seem to like this one. But it hit the right button with me. I loved it (watched it with a friend of mine, who was as excited as I was). I thought it was unique, told something different and made the most out of it's time frame (had to be less than an hour long, for TV reasons), had excellent actors (some well known, others not so much).

Maybe some think, that it just has too much in it and therefor is does not concentrate on a straight path down the road. That's exactly what I loved. You probably will guess, what is going to happen quite a few times, but the way it is played out, really got me going. Nicely written dialog and very self-aware (but not to the point, where it gets annoying ... not to me anyway), this was one great episode, from one great writer/director!

Masters Of Horror: Pick Me Up (TV) (Larry Cohen, 2006) **

[Bunuel1976 · 4/10 · 7 February 2009]

This episode of the popular horror TV series is probably the weakest I have seen so far – which is a pity since it marked the reunion of director Larry Cohen with his regular star of the 1980s, Michael Moriarty. The latter, in typically eccentric mode, plays a homicidal truck driver whose old-fashioned murderous ways are being outclassed in creative sadism by a new and younger serial killer. The two disturbed loners haunt a stretch of road that is occasionally frequented by tourists and things are kickstarted by a breakdown of just such a bus in the middle of nowhere. The handful of passengers and the bus driver are swiftly dealt with by the two of them working separately but they figure without rebellious Fairuza Balk who has quitted her party early on and reaches the nearest town on foot. The killers converge at a dingy hotel to claim their prey but things soon come to a head and spin out of control, necessitating the intervention of two ambulance drivers who – surprise, surprise – have their own heinous agenda! Despite the gore redolent of modern horror fare and the darkly humorous touches typical of earlier Cohen movies, the mixture falls flat on its face thanks to the sheerly unsympathetic nature of the three main characters which quickly depletes any kind of suspense or interest the narrative may have generated.

Reviews of Landis', McGee's and Cohen's episodes

[mkw-5 · 6 February 2006]

++++++++++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.

Good idea ruined by misogyny and gratuitous violence

[witchitateets · 2/10 · 13 April 2013]

I found this episode to be deeply unpleasant and somewhat mean-spirited. All the women are portrayed as weak, dumb, or annoying. The only independent-minded woman is eventually reduced to just another screaming damsel in distress. This seems to be the "in thing" these days. I really hate this trend of showing naked women being tortured. It does nothing to move the story forward and seems like it's meant only to appeal to sexual sadists. To be honest I can't believe this even aired on television. I guess people have become so desensitized that sexually sadistic violence is just considered entertainment. The two stars are for Michael Moriarty who gives an excellent performance in an otherwise trashy waste of 55 minutes.