My wife and I were in the mood for a horror movie last night. But, it was getting a bit late (we both had to work and my daughter had school) and we couldn’t find a decent movie right away so we decided, instead, to watch a Masters of Horror episode on Netflix.
After browsing a few titles, we ended up picking the Larry Cohen directed “Pick Me Up” because it looked similar to some of the slasher movies we have watched in the past. When we did this, we were expecting something that would have us on the edge of our seats. Unfortunately, it ended up letting us down quite a bit.
The overall plot had some potential, a bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, leaving the passengers stranded on the side of the road. While waiting, they encounter a truck driver and a hitchhiker who both seem nice but are actually competing serial killers who quickly kill everyone except the one passenger (Fairuza Balk) who decided not to wait for help and walked ahead. This leads to them eventually fighting over who gets to kill her.
The problem I had with this is, even though the plot really did have some potential, the overall execution was very weak. There was hardly any suspense, even when they were fighting over the last potential victim. At very least, it would have been nice to see the two killers fighting each other a bit more in a Freddy Versus Jason type battle rather than talking until the very end.
In fact, I think the only thing I liked about this short film was the ending. And, that was only because I loved the twist at the very end involving the ambulance drivers. That part alone was the only thing that kept this from being a complete and total waste of my time.
I have seen other Masters of Horror episodes and was very impressed with them. But, this one definitely did not live up to my expectations and I don’t recommend watching it as a result.
My Grade: 2 stars out of a possible 5.