Pick Me Up 

In the middle of nowhere, with only a two-lane highway to connect it to anywhere--probably upstate New York--a recently divorced female traveler, who is a passenger on a bus that has broken down, gets caught in a bizarre and violent turf war between serial killers.

Director:

Larry Cohen

Writers:

Mick Garris (creator), David J. Schow (teleplay)

Stars:

Fairuza Balk, Michael Moriarty, Warren Kole

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Fairuza Balk	...	Stacia
Michael Moriarty	...	Jim Wheeler
Warren Kole	...	Walker
Laurene Landon	...	Birdy
Malcolm Kennard	...	Danny
Tom Pickett	...	Bus Driver
Peter Benson	...	Deuce
Kristie Marsden	...	Marie
Michael Eklund	...	Cashier
Paul Anthony	...	Stoney
Crystal Lowe	...	Lily
Michael Petroni	...	Ambulance Attendant
Mar Andersons	...	Ambulance Driver

Storyline

When a bus breaks down in a desert road surrounded by woods, the passenger Stacia decides to walk ahead 20 km to a motel. The travelers Birdy and Danny get a lift with the deranged serial-killer truck driver Jim Wheeler to return to a dinning place and are killed. The paranoid Marie and her husband stay in the bus with the driver waiting for help. When the sadistic serial-killer hitchhiker Walker comes to the bus, he kills the trio. Later in the motel, Stacia is disputed by the two psychopaths.

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Plot Keywords:

serial killer | truck driver | motel | hitchhiker | psychopath | 

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Details

Country:

Canada USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 January 2006 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

IDT Entertainment,Industry Entertainment,Nice Guy Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

58 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The van in which Walker hitches a ride with Stoney and Lilly has Wyoming license plates. The first digit before the Wyoming Bucking Bronco denotes the county in which the vehicle is registered. In this case, county #1, which would be Natrona County.

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Goofs

When the punk women is tired to the bed in the motel room she is wearing red underwear, the scene cuts to the TV being turned off, then the women is now wearing white underwear.

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Quotes

Walker: Now, our judgmental trucker friend here, he's the type of guy who likes to hunt. He likes to theorize about prey, and he likes to think about worthy opponents and fair game, and just with all that bullshit. He loves it. Very romantic. Now, he thinks he ain't a predator. You should have seen him back at that bus.
[inhales]
Walker: [pause] You see all these little trinkets? These little souvenirs? Look at that. He never saw the Horrible Thing. He just kept the button.
[chuckles]
Walker: Now, your genuinely ...
[...]

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Connections

References The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

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Soundtracks

Snakes in the Snow
Written and Performed by Michael Moriarty.

User Reviews

Clash of the Serial Killers

Larry Cohen who has enriched the world of Exploitation cinema as the director of films like "Black Caesar" and "Q: The Winged Serpent" and, most memorably as the writer of films like "Maniac Cop" delivers one of the most outrageously entertaining "Masters of Horror" episodes with "Pick Me Up". While this eleventh episode of the first season does not quite reach the originality and ingenuity of the most brilliant entries to the series (such as Takashi Miike's "Imprint"), it does deliver what a "Masters of Horror" episode should: permanent suspense and genuine creepiness, paired with moments of incredibly morbid humor. A young woman named Stacia (played by sexy Fairuza Balk) is part of a bus-load of travelers, which, after breaking down in the middle of nowhere, bizarrely gets stuck between two psychopathic serial killers... I don't want to give too much away, but I can almost guarantee that people who like the show will also like this. The episode is suspenseful and creepy from the first minute, and sometimes spiced up with macabre humor, but never to a degree that would lessen the suspense). Fairuza Balk is sexy as always and fits perfectly in her role. Prolific actor Michael Moriarty and the less prolific Warren Kole are also very good in their roles. Along with the very first episode, "Incident On And Off A Mountain Road", "Pick Me Up" is probably the MoH episode that has the most genuine B-Movie-feeling, which should make it highly enjoyable to my fellow Horror/Exploitation fans. Overall, Larry Cohen is certainly not the most masterly director in the "Masters Of Horror" franchise (masters like Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter and Takashi Miike as directors of other episodes make this quite impossible), but his episode "Pick Me Up" proves that he is a more than adept maker of genuine solid Horror. "Pick Me Up" is a creepy and deliciously macabre entry to the series which MoH-fans should certainly not miss.