Pick Me Up is a Masters of Horror episode directed by Larry Cohen of It’s Alive fame, among other things. It’s about a bus that breaks down in the middle of nowhere. When this happens, some passengers decide to walk to the nearest town, others hitchhike, and others stay and wait at the bus. Passengers soon start getting picked off by a crazy truck driver and a crazy hitchhiker, who are unwittingly competing for victims on the same turf.

I didn’t really care for this episode. It didn’t feel real enough for me. Acting was poor at times. The truck driver annoyed me. I didn’t like the way he talked and I didn’t like the fact that he could play piano. It didn’t seem consistent with his character. The whole scenario was unlikely (with the ending being absurd).

People were completely helpless and were killed fairly easy. The characters were too stereotypical (dumb blonde who hits on old nasty truck driver, annoying loudmouth girlfriend with recessive boyfriend, hot trashy punk girl, handsome articulate crazy guy hitchhiker, blah blah blah). Plus, no matter how desolate a place, you have to expect some kind of law enforcement. Complete anarchy here. There was some nudity, but not a lot of gore. Some kills were off-screen, while others were open-ended (there may still be a girl tied up in the woods somewhere).

To summarize, this episode wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t one of the top-shelf editions. I was somewhat entertained, I just wasn’t convinced or pulled in. The storyline was fun, if not believable. It had action, it just didn’t feel well written. Kinda middle-of-the-road. I give it 5.5 out of 10 weird confusing scenes involving a cashier, a crazy truck driver, and his gun.

This review was fueled by Dream Evil. Metal reigns supreme! Just ask me.

I also found this episode somewhat dislikeable, the story was silly and except for a gruesome torture scene, unmemorable.

The dipshit trucker was played by Moriarty with the most annoying accent ever (although his piano playing didn’t offend me at all). To be honest, most my dislike for this episode comes directly from this performance, it’s really irritating.

Also Fairuza’s character was too uninteresting for me to care about. I liked her because she’s hot, but if an actor I didn’t recognize was in the role I might have not noticed her at all.

All in all, it really felt like a short story written by a teenager. I’m not saying it was terrible, it’s a decent story written by a teenager, but it lacked anything really clever or new, just a run-of-the-mill slasher’s gone wild story that glamorizes the killers and plays horror for laughs. Not my bag.

5 out of 10