Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (2005)

'Incident On and Off a Mountain Road' is thoroughly enjoyable, atmospheric horror with a lightning pace, delivering action, gore, and laughs in equal measure. It's based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, and co-scripted by Don Coscarelli, who'd previously brought Lansdale's story "Bubba Ho-Tep" to life. Pretty, appealing dancer / actress Bree Turner plays Ellen, who's motoring through the wilderness one night when she ends up in the domain of Moonface, deliciously played by John De Santis. Moonface is a towering, pale psycho with steel teeth who snatches unwary travellers and turns them into macabre works of art in front of his home. From then on it's a constant struggle for Ellen to keep her wits about her and remember the lessons taught to her by her domineering husband Bruce (Ethan Embry, in what was a real change-of-pace role and performance for him at the time). Bruce is a survivalist, see, and is constantly thinking about preparing for the worst. So this rocking episode is both an interesting look into the survivalist mentality, as well as a tried and true horror story with enough grisliness - including some implied ocular violence - to satisfy the gore hound in many of us. It also does great things with lighting and sound; when Moonface fires up his eye gouging machine, sirens go off! It has some great brief bits of grim irony, when some of the booby traps that Ellen sets up for Moonface don't work out as planned. Much of the humour is courtesy of Coscarelli's "good luck charm", actor Angus Scrimm a.k.a. The Tall Man of the "Phantasm" series, who plays demented Buddy, who chatters non-stop; the actor is just a hoot in the role. This is a fun, fun episode that begins a little quietly but soon starts coming up with shocks (when will characters ever learn to keep their eyes on the road?) and thrills that last right up until the end. Eight out of 10.

This episode seemed to take a rather reflexive look at horror, so that we see the results of a female protagonist who actually knows how to defend herself and is resourceful enough to actually take out the antagonist(s). After crashing into another car, Ellen finds herself being hunted by the local, serial killing ghoul. But instead of making the typical mistakes of women in horror films on the run from death, Ellen uses her defensive training that she learned from her obsessive and abusive husband, who lies dead in her trunk. The irony in the story lies in the fact that after Ellen uses her training to kill Bruce, she then gets pulled into a horrible situation requiring all her skills to survive. What's really great in the episode that made the whole thing worthwhile was that Ellen was able to leave Bruce's body at the home of the now dead psychopath, strung up on a crucifix like all of the ghoul's victims, washing Ellen's hands of the revenge she took on her husband. Quite nicely done.

Of the Master's of Horror shows I have seen this one is not all that good and not all that bad. Certainly not in the league of Cigarette Burns from John Carpenter, but what does one expect? The guy who did this one is not exactly a movie making machine with his best work coming in the Phantasm series with little else of note. Though I have heard a few good things from Bubba Ho Tep. This one is about a woman coming off a rather abusive relationship having a run in with a strange mountain man that one of those unfortunate enough to be caught by him calls Moonface. A game of cat and mouse ensues and though the film thinks it is being clever you should be able to figure out the twist at the end fairly easily. The killer in this film is your typical 80's slasher killer, the deformed man with a weapon and bad attitude. The heroine in this one is not so typical, though not all that surprising either, as like I said you should be able to deduce her secrets as you see glimpses of her former life in flashbacks. Also of note in this one is the guy who plays the Tall Man in the Phantasm movies having a bit of a small part in this film. Though all his menace is reduced and he is a bit of an idiot.

I've seen all the episodes of the Masters of Horror series and although I was quite disappointed from the Argento episode (like the most recent movie of his, more unintentionally funny, to stay positive), the overall quality of the show was pretty high. I still don't quite know why they abandoned the idea and throw the show out, after 2 seasons. But what can you expect of this very first episode of the first season then? Quite a few things, I'd say. While it starts off pretty bog standard, it pretty soon develops a nice narrative (timeline) and has a few surprises at hand. Don Cascarelli puts the female lead through some crazy things, but only in the end you will see that it was all needed, the build up, to get to the point of the revenge (it is quite "satisfying" for the viewer to see how it all unfolds).