Masters of Horror: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road - Review from Omega Channel

DVD review from Omega Channel - http://omegachannel.blogspot.com

Masters of Horror: Incident on and off a Mountain Road

This latest DVD release from the Showtime Masters of Horror series is
directed by Don Coscarelli who gave us the horror classic Phantasm, two
rather decent Phantasm sequels, and one pretty bad one. He's also
responsible for Beastmaster which, while a boxoffice disappointment
proved to be a monster hit on cable in the 1980s. Most recently
Coscarelli directed the very clever Bubba Ho Tep, starring Bruce
Campbell as a geriatric Elvis Presley. Incident On and Off a Mountain
Road, like Bubba Ho Tep is based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale,
probably one of the greatest living writers of short horror fiction.
Unfortunately this episode does not live up to the collective resume of
these two great talents.

A young woman named Ellen (Bree Turner) is driving down a secluded
country road lost in her own thoughts. She reaches to change the radio
station, taking her eyes from the road just long enough not to notice
another car stopped in front of her. The two cars collide and Ellen is
knocked unconscious. When she wakes up she follows a bloody trail from
the other car that leads to an embankment. She calls out into the
darkness and soon sees someone climbing up the steep grade toward her.
A monstrously tall man emerges from the darkness. His face is grotesque
and pale, his teeth are made of steel, and he's dragging an injured
young woman, presumably the occupant of the other car. Ellen takes off
into the woods, leaving a series of traps for Moon Face (John
DeSantis), as her pursuer is called, before eventually being captured
and taken back back to the man-monster's home. The bevy of eyeless
corpses decorating the house give Ellen an idea of what is in store for
her, and she must call on all her resourcefulness if she is to survive.

The story is peppered with flashbacks of Ellen's life with her
survivalist husband Bruce (Ethan Embry). We see the two meet and fall
in love, and over the course of their life together Bruce trains her to
protect herself, though she never lives up to his expectations. This is
where the film starts to fail. Right from their first date Ellen seems
completely smitten with Bruce, though it's not clear why. His knee-jerk
cynicism and pessimistic view of the world would seem to be a turn off,
but her coquettish smile never wavers. The scene in which Bruce
proclaims that he hates the rain, but Ellen frolics about in it like a
child seems particularly forced, feeling like a page from a Harlequin
Romance. The relationship that is so important to the story never never
comes together believably.

Further weakening the story are Bruce's trite survivalist axioms that
accompany Ellen's flashbacks. The line "When everything else fails
you try anything," is delivered as if this is some brilliant
observation that has evaded most people.

Overall the episode is marred by a sense of deja vu. The psychotic
killer redneck, stranded motorist, and corpses used as furniture and
lawn ornaments will make you think you've seen this film before,
although the first time around it was called The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Angus Scrimm, who played the Tall Man in Coscarelli's
Phantasm films, plays Buddy, a demented old man also being held captive
by Moon Face, and there are also some truly shocking bits, not least of
which is a creative use of a mummified baby. Neither is enough to make
the episode worthwhile.

I'm hoping this is just a sophomore slump for the first season of
Masters of Horror, as the John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon episodes
were quite good.

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