super marauder Who would have thought serial killers would be territorial? The story starts out when a bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere (of course), when a seemingly friendly truck driver offers to take the passengers to the nearby trading post. Only two passengers take him up on the offer, while two more stay with the bus along with the bus driver. One passenger decides to start walking by her self. Meanwhlie a friendly cowboy walks up to the bus and asks for a ride. It turns out the cowboy and the truck driver are both serial killers! Walker who hitch hikes, and Wheeler who drives picking up hitch hikers. After they dispose of their victims the fight over who gets to kill the last survivor of the bus. And like a good western we have a show down to see who gets to finish the victim off.This is definitely not scary but it is a good fun movie to watch. It's got some funny moments, some suspense, and a message: Don't hitch hike and don't pick up hitch hikers! Oh! The ending really makes believe in karma!

farfisamaniac Having had the misfortune of watching this, I can now say that I have no illusions about the decline of civilisation anymore. Where to start? Is it more disgusting that someone actually sat down and dreamt this filth up? Or the fact that the moronic Amerikan public laps this up? Gratuitous spilling of blood, murder, amoral stances, the glorifying of violence against women, it's all here, and all in the name of 'entertainment'. I found it rather fitting that a snake plays a role in here- it reminded me of the following Ambrose Bierce quote (a true master of horror, by the way- even for an American):"Its horrible head... the definition of the wide, brutal jaw, and the idiotlike forehead..." - what else can one say? The perfect description of the junk-food-scoffing, Coke-guzzling, brain-damaged Amerikan idiot who will enjoy this, and who provides the willing audience for Mr Cohen and his like. I would have given this a negative score, but sadly this is not possible. So one star, and 'awful' it will have to be, and that's a more than generous assessment.

Tim Hayes Larry Cohen has long been a favourite filmmaker of mine. I first discovered him at an early age watching the creature flick Q. That film, along with the Maniac Cop series and Uncle Sam solidified him as a great filmmaker in my mind. It wasn't until years later that I finally got to see the It's Alive series and God Told Me To and add them to his hit list. So its rather funny that of all the episodes from season one of Masters Of Horror that this one would take me so long to get around to watching. I missed the original airing of the episode on TV so I had to wait until it came out on DVD. When it did, I bought it immediately. Then, life got in the way and I never got around to it. Finally, after watching the episode, I can say it was worth the wait. Cohen is a master, there is no doubt. There are some classic Cohenisms on line here, even though he didn't write the script. And just seeing Michael Moriarty play the piano again was worth it. I've never read any of David Schow's work so I wasn't familiar with the story on which the episode is based. Really, it is rather simplistic in its narrative and allusions, but it gets the job done. Wheeler is a trucker who kills anyone who he picks up on the road. Walker is a hitchhiker who kills anyone who picks him up. The two meet one night on a lonely mountain road and a young woman is caught in the middle of their macabre game. This may not be my absolute favourite episode of the season, but it certainly ranks up there in my top 3. Well worth a look.

fabulousrice 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.