Recent Reviews
TV Review: Masters of Horror - Episode Eleven
By James VanFleet
Jan 24, 2006, 07:40

“Pick Me Up” is probably the most straightforward entry in the MoH series, after Coscarelli’s “Incident.”  It’s about a nightlong battle between two of the most durable urban legends.  In one corner, there’s a character named Walker (Warren Kole), a hitchhiker who loves to kill those who might give him a lift.  In the other corner, there’s Wheeler (Michael Moriarty), a truck driver who, yeah, that’s right, loves to kill those who might need a lift.

Stuck between them is the delicious Fairuza Balk as Stacia.  Yes, she of 90’s ‘classics’ like The Craft and The Waterboy.  She’s one of those girls that’s immediately interesting, because her looks are both classical and completely different from normal Hollywood beauty.

Alright, that last sentence is pretty much code for “I want to be on Fairuza Balk.”

Regardless, she finds herself stuck between the two, as each man tries to lay claim on killing her.  Along the way, each man knocks off people that we suspect are the type of people to be knocked off in a story like this.  It’s never clear, but I guess there’s some sort of good-natured competition between Walker and Wheeler.  One wonders if they ever let the Doorknob-Hook guy in on the action.

Technically, this episode is nice and polished, with Cohen taking a real pleasure in cross-cutting between the two villains.  They are played quite differently, allowing us two unique killers.  Walker is generally good-natured and matter-of-fact about his killings, although he’s prone to the occasional manic outburst.  As a boring character flees from him in the woods, he screams, “Didn’t we already see this in Texas Chainsaw?  In both versions?!”

Michael Moriarty manages to walk away with the episode, playing his Wheeler character as a bottomless pit of slow, mumbly dialogue that would make Marlon Brando blush.  Sometimes it’s a bit too much – I missed what were probably some good lines of dialogue, just cause it was so hard to understand him.

While the characters are good, and the plot is fun, the potential fizzes out over the course of the episode.  As I mentioned, the two are in a weird sort of competition.  One would suspect the story would promise a confrontation between the two, but they are played more as bickering brothers than psychopaths.  When confrontations finally arrive, they’re disappointing.  I was hoping for mind games and deadly blows and the like, and I . . . didn’t quite get anything like that.

The actual conclusion to the story is a nice touch, but there’s not enough punch there to justify leaving such a great premise with such a tepid finale.  I enjoyed the acting in this episode.  I enjoyed the initial tension.  I enjoyed one great shot that looks over the three characters, one after the other, as they all rest in adjacent motel rooms.  I didn’t enjoy the way things resolved, and resolution is key in a story like this.  There’s some fun in this episode.  Just not enough.

Checkout our review of Episode One: Don Coscarelli's  Incident On and Off a Mountain Road

Checkout our review of Episode Two: Stuart Gordon's H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House

Checkout our review of Episode Three: Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead

Checkout our review of Episode Four: Dario Argento's Jenifer

Checkout our review of Episode Five: Mick Garris's Chocolate

Checkout our review of Episode Six: Joe Dante's Homecoming

Checkout our review of Episode Seven: John Landis' Deer Woman

Checkout our review of Episode Eight: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

Checkout our review of Episode Nine: William Malone's Fair-Haried Child

Checkout our review of Episode Ten: Lucky McKee's Sick Girl