PICK ME UP

Stacia is traveling on a bus that crosses a mountainous area; the bus breaks down and the girl decides to continue on foot towards the nearest motel. Shortly after, an ambiguous truck driver arrives at the bus's stopping point, offering to give a ride to some other passengers towards the motel; the driver and a couple remain at the breakdown site. Soon, a young hitchhiker arrives who kills both the driver and the young couple, then heads towards the nearby motel. Stacia, the truck driver, and the hitchhiker will cross paths, setting up a deadly game. "Masters of Horror" is a unique project conceived by Mick Garris, a director known in the horror genre primarily for his adaptations of Stephen King's novels. Garris thought of bringing together the most representative horror film directors in a project destined for cable TV Showtime and home video; the result is "Masters of Horror," a series of 13 half-hour films, each directed by a major figure in genre cinema; each episode has a budget of $1.8 million, the location set in the Canadian city of Vancouver, and total creative freedom was given to each director. The names involved in the project are: Don Coscarelli, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Lucky McKee, Stuart Gordon, Joe Dante, John McNaughton, Larry Cohen, Takashi Miike, John Carpenter, William Malone, John Landis, and Mick Garris himself. "Road to Death" (originally "Pick Me Up") is the episode of "Masters of Horror" directed by Larry Cohen, an old glory of B-movie horror cinema, now years away from the camera. Cohen had accustomed us to honest, and often tasty, films ranging from the original and socially committed "Baby Killer" to the frivolous but acceptable "The Vampires of Salem," but with this return he has probably created one of the worst episodes of the successful series "Masters of Horror." "Road to Death" is inspired by a short story by splatterpunk writer David J. Schow, but the thin starting material fails to hold the viewer's attention for the 60 minutes of its duration, thus giving rise to a series of repetitive encounters/clashes between the killers and their victims. The basic idea, which sees the duel between two ruthless serial killers, diametrically (and symbolically) opposed in their way of moving, is certainly original and could have offered material for a product of sure interest; unfortunately, this idea only serves as a backdrop to a boring staging that tends to emphasize the grotesque elements without ever pushing towards the heart of the action. The ending, if we want to call it cryptic, does little to help digest this poorly seasoned dish. If one of the essential points of the "Masters of Horror" project was the complete creative freedom left to the director, it seems that Cohen did not take advantage of it, as the film seems to hold back in the most crude scenes, which, although present, are rendered in a completely "light" way, leaving all the murders to the annoying off-screen. The screenplay is flawed and not at all interested in the development of the characters, about whom we know practically nothing; the direction also does not seem particularly lively, making "Road to Death" indistinguishable from any other TV-style production. The cast features a couple of notable names, represented by the interesting Fairuza Balk ("The Craft"; "Lost Island"), in the role of Stacia, and Cohen's fetish actor, the sympathetic Michael Moriarty ("The Vampires of Salem"; "The Stuff"), in the role of the truck driver. In the role of the killer hitchhiker is the expressionless Warren Kole ("A Song for Bobby Long"). In short, "Road to Death" is simply a disappointment, a missed opportunity for Larry Cohen to show the new generations his dissacratory talent as expressed in his old works.