super marauder 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!

ThrownMuse 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.

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.

Paul Andrews Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up is set in the middle of nowhere somewhere in America, a bus breaks down on the only road for miles & it's passengers are stranded. Stacia (Fairuza Balk) decides to walk to the nearest town, Bridy (Laurene Landon) & Danny (Malcolm Kennard) accept a lift from a trucker named Jim Wheeler (Michael Moriarty) while the bus driver (Tom Pickett) & his two remaining passengers Marie (Kristie Marsden) & her boyfriend Deuce (Peter Benson) wait at the bus for the repair team. However things aren't what they seem as Wheeler is in fact a serial killer & he quickly becomes aware of another serial killer named Walker (Warren Kole) working on his patch after finding the dead bodies of the bus driver, Marie & Deuce. Jim doesn't like competition & their paths cross as they battle it out to be the one who kills Stacia...This American Canadian co-production was episode 11 from season 1 of the hit-and-miss Masters of Horror TV series, directed by Larry Cohen I thought Pick Me Up was OK but nothing special. The script based on his own short story by David J. Schow actually makes for quite a dull 55 minutes, I'm sorry but I couldn't really get into the story at all. The prospect of two serial killers facing off against each other is a decent idea but here they operate so openly & are so over-the-top that I couldn't take it seriously. I felt the character's were pretty poor, the dialogue was cheesy at times although I must admit I did like the twist ending which unusually I never saw coming. To it's credit at less than an hour in length it moves along at a reasonable pace even if it is a bit predictable & dull it's probably worth a watch if you can catch it on TV for free.Veteran director Cohen does OK although this is far from the best looking or most stylish of Masters of Horror episodes, there is a distinct lack of scares, excitement or tension & not much atmosphere either. The gore is pretty restrained in Pick Me Up as well, there's a bit of blood, a dead snake & a scene with a woman having had some of her skin sliced off earlier.This is generally well made & looks better than a lot of made-for-cable TV rubbish with decent production values. The acting is alright & includes Michael Moriarty & Laurene Landon who have each both previously starred in several Cohen films.Pick Me Up is an OK time waster, at least it doesn't go on for that long & is worth a watch if you like the Masters of Horror TV series or have interest in the genre, other's however may want to skip it.