Welcome to serial killer alley, which is above tornado alley and below the snow belt. Too bad Fairuza Balk has to do these jobs now that she has been stricken with the ravages of age. The two serial killers are not very unique, at first I though they were working together. They both seem to waste their time talking, and assuring their prey is safe, then kill them. The cowboy cut up what could have been some great TnA opportunity, cause she flashes a nice up skirt, but it was the pg 13 kind. The ending was very predictable, as everyone you encounter in serial killer alley is well you figured it out a serial killer. I gave this one 4 tits out of 10 because Fairuza Balk was in it and the acting was alright. Thank god they killed that fake ass lizard lip blond right from the get go.

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!

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.

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.