Released: October 28, 2005
Director: Don Coscarelli
*****
The theory behind the
Masters of Horror series is to give directors like John Carpenter (
Halloween), Joe Dante (
Gremlins) and Coscarelli (formerly of
Phantasm) an hour to scare the bejesus out of the audience on a weekly basis. Airing on Showtime ensured each director could make R-rated stories with cursing and sex without worrying about network censorship. All good, in theory. But whereas most horror films screw up by being too long and dragging out the plot,
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road has the exact opposite problem: it's not long enough.
When Ellen gets into an accident on a mountain road late one night, she is mercilessly stalked by a killer known as Moonface. In order to escape this deformed and deranged psycho, she has to rely on lessons her former husband taught her, building to a stunning climax. In a horror film, as with any linear film, events have to progress naturally from what we know of the characters. We wouldn't expect Ripley to slink into a corner and let the Alien Queen impregnate her at the end of
Aliens; so how does Ellen morph from the typical scared heroine of this film into, basically, a cold blooded killer? It can be argued, based on the last five minutes, she was always a killer. Which then leads into a whole other set of questions, such as if she was a killer from the start, why did she act like Ms. Typical Horror Woman from the start?
As horror movies go, this isn't anything we haven't seen before. Girl gets stalked, girl fights back, hand to hand combat, one or two gory scenes, a shocking ending no one expects...it's all taken from the horror script generator. Originally a thirteen page short story written by Joe Landsdale and optioned by Coscarelli for a full length treatment,
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road would have benefited from a longer run time, if only to flesh out the character of Ellen a bit more. Does it need the full 90 or 120 minutes? No; utilizing the allocated 60 minutes for the film would have been enough.
(spout.com)
Originally posted on:TheMovieRambler’s blog