Pick Me Up

Pick Me Up (2006)
Masters of Horror, episode 11

Rating: Meh
Moderately Trashy

Masters of Horror episode from Larry Cohen (Q) involving two serial killers on the open road: a hitchhiker (Warren Kole) and a truck driver (Michael Moriarty). Both of them go after Fairuza Balk and get into a fight over who gets to kill her.

Ordinarily I am a big fan of lightening up a little and poking a bit of fun at the genre, but honestly, one can go too far.

Okay, television is a problem seeing as they have to fit everything into 58 minutes, which leaves little room for delving, but they also have to give the viewer incentive to not change the channel and watch whatever else is on (I watched this on DVD so it wasn't a problem - besides, once I start watching a show, I kind of owe it to the TV people not to change the channel, but I'm a little weird).

Anyway, I thought this was actually a really cool idea for a movie, but it just didn't seem to realize its full potential (which is kind of the same way I feel about this show in general - great idea, but so far I haven't seen anything really that interesting). They could have further explored the relationships between the characters but instead made it into a joke with a really bad punchline.

The two guys in the movie were okay. They weren't great, but they were better than Fairuza Balk, which I know isn't really saying that much...

Also they made sure to throw in lots of references to such films as Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (both the original and the remake), and many more films I am no doubt neglecting to mention because a) I didn't catch them, b) I'm lazy and I don't give a shit or c) someone's talking to me and I can't focus. Also, I watched this movie on August 16th so I can't really remember that much about it.

It was okay, I guess. It's fairly well done considering that it's made for television, there was some pretty clever dialogue in there and stuff. It just wasn't especially interesting. I dunno, it was completely undermined by its own goofiness. And despite that, it wasn't really that funny...

END

Directed by: Larry Cohen. Written by: David J. Schow based on his short story. Starring: Fairuza Balk, Michael Moriarty, Warren Kole.