Wheeler

whew! i just finished this tour-de-force of a picture show! there is most definitely no character in the history of cinema who stands as grand as wheeler. he has more moxie than a fox in a rat trap! nothing can complete with this character who enjoys some kfc at a local tavern while forcing the waitress to put on an alluring strip show. in addition, the soundtrack or "wheeler's theme" is the tops! i didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but i was certainly glued to my davenport! oh, and his pilgrim hat is the benchmark in fashion...i only i could find the store where he got that....! in closing, this moving picture show was fraught with thrills and chills...i nearly wet my trousers!

Buoyantly grimy feature is a headless wallow in the cinema pigpen, but does have its iniquitous black heart in the right place. The meandering account of two hired criminals embroiled in a kidnapping scheme is merely a flimsy framework for the binding of several scenarios, each rife with senseless violence and gratuitous naturism of the female form. I have absolutely no problem with that, especially with a baby-faced Linnea Quigley in the mix, being doused with beer and forced to dance to twangy country tunes.

Our primary antagonist is a moon-faced Texas nutcase with a sick penchant for lustmord, a psychosis seeded in his childhood when he saw his mother in concupiscent action with some random Tom, Dick, or Harry. John King III gives his psychotic character the works in an over-the-top and pretty memorable performance, though the rest of the cast are merely commensurate(which is better than can usually be expected from this subjacent ambit of cinema)

5.5/10...unapologetically excessive, dog-eared 70s fun.

The quality of this movie can be summed up in two words, "Wanna Root?" This is the phrase that can be heard over and over in the restaurant scene where Slick meets Wheeler. It's in the background noise, which is obviously about 8 seconds worth of noise being looped over and over. Ah, What to say about this film? On every technical level, Psycho From Texas is a total failure. The editing is horrendous, you can see scratches in the film. The acting is equally bad. At some points continuity is non-existent. Despite all of this, I enjoyed Psycho From Texas on a comedic level. It tries really hard to be scary and shocking, but ends up laughable. If you can find a copy of it somewhere, rent it. Rent it just to hear Slick squeal in the chase scene near the end. Rent it to hear Wheeler say, "No! You listen here, old man!" You can probably rent it for a buck, if you can find it at all.

This is one of those 70's movies I appreciate not because it's good, or even because it's "so bad it's good", but because it's so far out of the generally accepted cinematic universe that it's hard to believe it was ever made at all. The Southern-fried plot involves a kidnapping masterminded by the greedy son-in-law of a rich oil baron (which naturally goes completely awry). The hired goon he gets to do this "Wheeler, the titular "Psycho from Texas", is a completely unlikeable and physically unattractive sociopath, who the filmmakers for some reason try to turn into some kind of tragic, sympathetic anti-hero by showing flashbacks of him as a grubby little kid watching his prostitute mother service male clients while a strangely touching country music song plays on the soundtrack.

The most famous scene by far in this movie though is where "Wheeler" makes a barmaid, played by a very young Linnae Quigley, take off all her clothes and dance for him him while he pours beer over her head (then for the coup de grace he makes her dry hump the corpse of a man he has just killed). This scene actually gave me a new appreciation for Quigley who I had previously known only as a 1980's "scream queen", where she always adopted this intentional bad-acting schtick, (which I assumed covered up a total lack of talent) in countless "horror" movies that in turn used her and other half-naked "scream queens" to cover up the fact that they were completely worthless dreck. Quigley looks really good here despite (certainly not because of)the degrading nature of the scene, but what is REALLY impressive, even in such a small role as this, is her acting. I don't want to make outlandish claims that she deserved an Academy-award nomination or anything, but how many Academy-award nominated actresses would have had the guts to do something like this? And how many of her fellow "scream queens" could have possibly pulled it off?

This movie is not very good, but it is kind of interesting.

Movie feels like its 3 hours long but only runs under an hour and a half. Nothing happens and when it does it takes FOREVER to! I give this movie this, it has the longest foot chase scene in the history of movies!! For Grindhouse and VHS collectors its worth seeing once.