ablebravo Weird.First, this is obviously an attempt to grab on the "son-mother" "Psychoesque" dynamic - but on a serious budget. A seriously limited one. I give high points for above the standard for the genre writing and overall story structure then am forced to downgrade it all because the acting of several key characters was so gawdalmighty bad the whole secret was telegraphed in the first third of the film.Running only 77 minutes and feeling as if it ran MUCH longer, actually (enough of the guitar music and the golden fields, okay??) we get well-written and uncharacteristically introspective speeches coming from characters which could have been played by better actors. It tried so hard to be deep, perhaps profound, but no. Bad acting. That snarled the whole business up more than anything else. This film also holds the record as having the worst, the most horrible audio blooper in the history of talkie films IMO. It goes like this: There's a sequence in the first third or so ... let's just say "the morning after..." where Dad and Son are having a conversation. Outside on a farm. Opening and closing doors and gates with all sorts of normal country life activity, yet their conversation sounds as if it had been recorded in the Grand Canyon. Damn distracting, especially the closeups where you could really see the dialog dubbed and that which was filmed were nowhere near in synch. Now, what did come out particularly nasty were the kills. Coupled with the gritty, cheap (16mm?) stock they were using, and the real location shooting (really nice house BTW.I liked it), the whole work carried almost the appearance of an early snuff film with a raw documentary feel to the cinematography.The music score was utterly bizarre. Ranging from some bizarre tweetling like the dying gasp of an ancient Farfisa organ to wildly inappropriate jamming in places best kept quiet, it alternated between excellent and "PLEASE STFU!!" There was also an extended bar scene with a not-too-bad late 60s style Strawberry Alarm Clock/Doors-ish mod psych group which - mostly for padding purposes - got rather a lot of screen time. I FFWD just a little bit, to get the two of them across that damn golden field and get on with the story.Not utterly unwatchable, but don't expect even bush-grade acting chops here. 61/100

jfgibson73 I don't really have anything to add that isn't already posted in the comment section for this movie. I am just going to summarize things that others have said that I agree with.This is a gritty, low-budget exploitation movie with a 70's feel. You will notice similarities to Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and supposedly it is inspired by the same true-life serial killer. It has some gore and nudity, and quite a bit of slow-moving filler. If you are bothering to track this movie down, you probably already have seen several like it and know what to expect.The plot involves an isolated farm boy who lives with his father. When the movie begins, four young ladies are traveling to his neck of the woods for a girls-only camping trip. Their car breaks down and he invites them to stay at his place, where he lives with his dad. Twenty minutes into the movie, and all four girls are dead.I really had to keep watching to see what else the director would do for the rest of this full-length movie after accomplishing what most movies would take their entire running time to do. Instead of following the formula, this one switches things up and has the boy head into town to drink away his troubles. It seems he murdered the girls without realizing what he was doing, and apparently this was not the first time something like this happened. The shot of the young killer walking down the neon-light street with his hands in his pockets seems to suggest Peter Parker more than a pick-ax murderer. Luckily, he gets drunk and an attractive bartender takes him home, because that's what girls did in the seventies, isn't it? They end up getting along, and he invites her to stay at his farm. She accepts, and it looks like the horror will occur all over again.I usually never even try to figure how movies are going to end, but I saw where this one was going VERY early on. It contains most of the elements of trashy 70's horror, such as a weird, repetitive "score," poor acting, ridiculous dialog, a grainy yet naturalistic look, and retro fashions. In the middle of the movie, there is a band playing in the bar where the main character goes to drink, and we watch them play two entire songs as if they were the musical guests on an episode of SNL. The movie is unintentionally funny, and I had to find something else to do during long stretches where very little was happening. However, as a fan of these sorts of curiosities, I enjoyed the experience overall, at least upon my first viewing. I don't think I could sit through it again.I also want to say that I have seen the last movie this director made, titled Manitou. It is actually pretty impressive to see the progress he made in the time between these two movies. I was saddened to learn that he died at a young age after only six years of writing and directing horror movies. He seems like he was on track to becoming a very prolific filmmaker.

Michael_Elliott Three on a Meathook (1972) ** 1/2 (out of 4) William Girdler directed this horror film, which is another variation of the Ed Gein story. Four girls go camping but their car breaks down. Thankfully a young man named Billy comes by and offers them a chance to spend the night at his house along with his father. To say any more would ruin a few surprises the film has to offer. This low budget film was clearly influenced by Psycho and offers a couple nice homages to the Hitchcock film. However, it's also rather clear that this film influenced two future Gein based films, Deranged and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For the most part the film works fine with some nice direction and a couple good performance but even at 80-minutes this thing drags in certain spots. It seems the movie would have only ran fifty-minutes but there are several scenes that just drag on for no reason.

AngryChair Ultra-low-budget, skid row version of Psycho lands firmly in the category of so-bad-its-good!Why is it that every time handsome, young Billy brings a girl home that she ends up butchered?One of a number of drive-in horror flicks that William Girdler made in the '70's, this one being fairly memorable. As with many films of its budget, the raw, natural settings add to the moody believability of the picture. James Pickett turns in a decent performance as the films main character, who seems to have some problems indeed. Charles Kissinger plays off well enough as Pickett's odd father. Girdler gives the film a gritty, but nicely moody music score.As with many exploitation films of its day, there's plenty of gore and skin to see. After all, what would you expect from a movie with this memorable title! All in all, Three on a Meathook is a film that's certainly not for all tastes! Fans of the B genre, especially from this era will likely enjoy this horrific and unintentional funny flick.** 1/2 out of ****