Motor Killer

Well, no need to beat about the bush, this is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. Everything looks so false that it made me laugh (literally)... Most of what happens in this 'film' is simply ridiculous. For instance, in the asylum where the psycho is confined, one of the watchmen is explaining to a new recruit that the cell he is going to open contains the most dangerous madman he has ever seen. However that does not seem to bother him since he opens the door without any caution. Of course the psycho escapes as he was apparently hiding behind the door with a chair !!!(yes this crazy killer has furniture in his room and even a telly !!!) After having murdered one or two guards, the man finally escapes the asylum by jumping from a tower and landing on a guard's belly... That was probably one of the funniest scene from the whole film. Other than that, the film is full of inaccuracies and incoherence: The desert where most of the film within the film is set is probably the most crowded desert I have ever seen (you have of course the film cast and crew, but also campers, a sheriff, a carpenter, an old lady (interpreted by a young woman whose way of acting reminded me of Steve Urkel from Family Matters...), young lovers, and so on); the psycho slaughters half of the crew but no one seems to care for those who have disappeared; the killer kills someone with plastic bear claws !!!; no one notices the killer's presence despite his uncommon lack of ability for hiding, and so forth. In short, this film is a real disaster but as funny as Hell.

Freeway Maniac (1989)

** (out of 4)

By 1989 the slasher genre was pretty much drying up and dying off as even mainstream fair like Friday THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN were turning up dead numbers at the box office. A few films still snuck onto video and here's one example that I still have fond memories of renting when I was around ten years old. Young Arthur sees his mom getting nailed on the kitchen table so he takes a butcher knife to her and the lover. Years later he (James Courtney) escapes from the nut house and goes on a killing spree that takes him to an actress (Loren Winters) who stops him and send him back to the nut house. Have no fear as he escapes yet again and goes after the actress who is now making a sci-fi movie out in the desert. I remember renting this thing so much as a kid that the video store owner finally gave me the store's only copy because he said I was the only one who ever rented it. It had been at least fifteen or more years since I last watched this thing but I gave it another viewing and I must admit that I respect this film a lot more now and I understand why I loved it so much as a kid. This film certainly belongs in the group of such films as MANIAC (1934), REEFER MADNESS and TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE as all-time disasters that are so incredibly horrid that you can't help but laugh and be entertained by how bad everything you're seeing is. This movie has an awful production value, a horrid story, horrendous acting, bad special effects and everything else is just as worse. Everything in this movie is so bad that you can't help but laugh at it and just take a look at the first escape sequence when our maniac body slams a guy by jumping off a three or four story building. It's also funny that after each murder sequence we see the dead person lying there yet nearly every time they're still breathing. It looks like someone would have caught this at some point. This film was released by Cannon who were well known for delivering trash and this certainly fits that bill. This isn't as good as some of their other horror films like HOSPITAL MASSACRE but fans of the weird are going to love this. The movie is rather tame in terms of violence, blood and nudity but it makes up for that in the sure brilliance of the awfulness of everything. The body count is pretty high as people just seem to come out of no where for our maniac to slaughter. The title comes from the fact that our killer is constantly having to hitchhike or kill people for their vehicles in order to track down the actress. Fans of art house pictures aren't going to find anything entertaining here but if you love bad movies then this here is certainly one of the all-time greats.

My review was written in January 1989 after watching the film on Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

Previously known as "Breakdown", this threadbare horror pickup from Cannon boasts a couple of unusual names in the credits but flunks out in execution, accounting for its direct-to-video release.

Co-producer Loren Wines toplines as a model who gets a job starring in a low-budget sci-fi flick, "Astronette". She also has a run-in with an escaped looney (James Courtney), who slashed folks in the pic's prolog and keeps getting loose to wreak havoc on or near the freeway.

Filmmaker Paul Winters includes some heavy-handed spoofing of low-budget genre lensing, while his own work is a substandard example of same. Renowned horror cartoonist Gahan Wilson contributed to the ho-hum script and also fashioned a large clam monster for the film-within-a-film that resembles his magazine drawings. Lead guitarist for The Doors, Robby Krieger, delivers some forgettable songs, and such heavyweights as Robert Bloch and Stan Lee figure in the thank-you credits.

It's all a lost cause with amateurish acting, cheapo technical work and little imagination.

Wow - this film is fun. Inept in every way - our group just LAUGHED at everything. The acting is horrid - the filmmaking is terrible, there are some decent stunts but the script sounds like it was written by drunk 7th graders trying to write a slasher film. The film wastes no time. A little boy kills his slutty mom and her lover with a giant fake knife. And then of course he's put in the nuthouse, where I guess he had a personal trainer and access to a 24 hour gym and a personal hair stylist. And this escaped maniac justa starts killin'. And one bimbo gets away and he must have her - he must kill her. And of course she is cast in a sci-fi film (where the auditions are held in a school auditorium). And the maniac follows her to the desert where they are making the film and starts picking off people one by one. (too bad he didn't strangle the real director of the film). The scene where he kills a rattlesnake and then "eats" it is hysterical. The quickly made prop looks like a Snake Sub - he is so clearly eating bread that has been covered in green food coloring. Actually Rural Dirt Road Maniac is more accurate.

This late '80s slasher is perhaps notable in that no actual attacks happen on the freeway ("Hey, a deserted highway is close enough," the director). We start with the genesis of nearly all killers - spying on mom having awkward sex on the kitchen table. It sends poor Arthur into a rage and he stabs them both to death. Amusingly, the mom is killed first in shrieking fashion a room away from her beau and he hears nothing. Flash forward to the present day and Arthur (James Courtney) is housed in a nuthouse. He escapes in grand fashion by bashing a bunch of guards ("No, I'm new here" screams one orderly before getting bashed, as if Freeway Maniac cares about seniority). Cut to poor model Linda (Loren Winters), who has escaped in her own way after she finds her boyfriend cheating on her so she heads into country for a drive. Bad move as her car breaks down and she ends up at a gas station with a perv owner. To make matters worse, Freeway Maniac Arthur has shown up in a stolen car and attacks her. She successfully fights him off and he is re-captured. Her status as serial killer survivor gets her cast in a low budget sci-fi picture (!) and this causes Arthur to escape again and head to the set for his revenge.

Probably the most notable thing about Freeway Maniac is it was co-written by illustrator Gahan Wilson. He also designed the rock aliens for the movie-with-the-movie. He and co-writer/director Paul Winters would reunite for Walking Dead of the West (2013 aka Cowboy Zombies). Winters commits some unfortunate goofs that result in some laughable moments. My personal favorite is the bit where a guy is squashed under a semi truck. It is a great stunt, but the poor fellow is wearing a blue jean jacket while the dummy that gets pulverized is sporting a red flannel shirt. It is the kind of film where people just wander off to get killed (my favorite being the lone set security guard who confronts a chainsaw wielding Arthur and says, "Hey! What are you doing that? That doesn't belong to you. Bring that here right now!"). The sci-fi film setting is interesting, but never used to the fullest extent of satire (I assume that is where they were going with a lecherous producer and barking mad Aussie director). If anything, Freeway Maniac proved to be a great training ground for the hulking Courtney as he would go on to play Michael Myers 30 years later in the new David Gordon Green HALLOWEEN film trilogy. I can only assume this on his resume got him the gig.