kosmasp 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!

MARIO GAUCI 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.

Michael_Elliott Pick Me Up (2006) ** (out of 4) Disappointing installment from Larry Cohen about a bus breaking down and one passenger (Fairuza Balk) who decides to walk to a nearby motel. The young woman eventually gets caught between two serial killers who have different ideas on how to murder. One (Warren Kole) kills those who pick him up while the other (Michael Moriarty) kills whoever he picks up. The first fifteen minutes of this film are very fast paced with some suspenseful moments but things go downhill once we hit the motel. The pace slows down and nothing too exciting happens, which one must blame the screenplay for. Moriarty steals the show with his sly humor.

fabulousrice 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.