Wheeler

When I was watching this film for the first time, I was in tears of laughter as the opening credits were rolling up the screen, knowing full well what to expect. They say don't judge a book by its cover, but when I saw the cover for "The Butcher", I just knew there was a gem inside. Never before have I laughed so much. This film has become legendary at my school. John King III is a genius! Just how many times can Slick say: "Now I got your ayyass!"? Why also does Slick go "bing-bong-bing-bong-boinggg" when he drops the sacred "Wheeler's kniyfe"?

Keep up the good work!

My review was written in October 1982 after a Times Square screening.

"Psycho from Texas" is a southern-fried action film, shot on a tiny budget in Louisiana in 1974. After going through various title changes including "Wheeler", "The Mama's Boy" and "The Hurting", picture emerges as a modest example of regional filmmaking, with amateurish direction and playing suitable for undiscriminating viewers.

Filmmaker Jim Feazell is apparently too easy-going to give the film the kind of oomph action audiences crave, so he settles for a leisurely tale of a stranger in town named Wheeler (John King III) who with a local partner Slick (Tommy Lamey) kidnaps a wealthy retired oilman Bill Phillips (Herschel Mays).

Picture's current title derives from Wheeler's battered childhood at the hands of his mothe (seen in crudely inserted flashbacks), which have made him a knife-wielding rapist-murderer of unsuspecting women. This subplot is confusingly unfolded parallel to the main kidnap story.

Duo's plans go awry when Phillips escapes from the incompetent Slick, cuing one of the longest (and silliest) foot-chases ever presented, as Slick runs after his prey through the bayous for the last half of the picture (mercifully intercutting to Wheeler's scenes elsewhere). Finale serves up "Southern justice" as the sheriff calmly blows Wheeler away to revenge the psycho's murder of his daughter.

Acting by local types (with thick accents) is generally incompetent, though lead actor John King III (who looks a bit like Chuck McCann) has a pleasant personality and maniacal laugh as the nasty anti-hero. Picture is not racist, but blacks are cast in subsidiary positions (a young boy who goes fishing with Phillips, servant roles), including Juanne Bruno as an old-fashioned maid who is briefly hilariously screaming her heart out and scurrying away on all fours when she finds a femme corpse in the pantry.

While tech credits are acceptable at this level, editing and scene construction are poor.

License plate on the car and the main actor are from Texas. Where is this taken place? Nobody says anything about that, in a town, and in no time in the middle of nowhere with a run down refinery. My Grandfather was the Bank President and Mr. Phillips best friend. His role was short and sweet to the point and I believe he acted as himself with no lines. He was just like, think about this, and added logic reasons, he should have been asked in the meantime why weeler cashed a check with no I.D. from someone else's account. Sound was what can I say, horrible, chase scene was miles long, so still trying to figure out where they were! I could tell though that the courthouse in El Dorado was noticeable in South Arkansas. More porn on this movie than movies of that nature nowadays. It's alright if your bored! I watched it only for the 2 or 3 minute scene my Grandfather played as the best friend to Mr. Phillips.

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.

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.