L'abattoir humain

A group of shapely girls get stranded near an isolated farmhouse(so far so formulaic)and are given shelter by a young man and his father who inhabit the house. The father wants the girls out, hinting at disaster("Billy, I don't want to be unreasonable, but you know how you get around women...")which of course comes true when the chicks get the axe...literally.

Okay, so it looks to be shaping up to be a run-of-the-mill gore film, but insert a love interest for the confounded Billy, a college-dropout-turned-cocktail-waitress, and the love story element is underway. The couple wander through meadows of goldenrod while the girl explains all this(the college drop-out bit)and Billy agrees to invite his new squeeze and her friend to his farm, where there's more talky character development(on the part of the friend, who spouts some kind of florid anti-Vietnam rhetoric in regard to her dead boyfriend)and all the horror of the killings is revealed! And the epilogue is unusual in that it actually gives promise for Billy and his girlfriend's future!

Okay, so maybe it's a stretch to say this is a decent movie, but come on, how many gore films even attempt any character development? You almost feel sorry for Billy and his plight. The dialogue leans toward more overripeness than camp, and so the dialogue seems more like TV movie of the week fare than Ed Wood. Still, it is an unusual flick.

I long for days when films like Three on a Meat hook painted the screen red. The year 1999 bloodless lame horror films with models and rap singers play your local multi-plexes. I was lucky enough to live through the 70's and 80's to see fun movies like this. Today horror is a shadow of what is used to be. I feel sorry for today's fans who watch such bloodless weak pieces of total garbage like Scream and Halloween H2o and call that horror!! This is horror. Mindless, poorly acted, edited, and basically just a lot of fun. Sorry to dwell on the past so much but Three On a Meat hook represents what will never be seen again thanks to Politically correct morons in today's film world!! Long live 3 on a Meathook!!!!

What makes "Three on a Meathook" a balls-out real horror film? It's the fact that it looks like a home movie a serial killer would make. It looks like, after finding a 16mm camera in one of his victim's houses, some serial killer got a few of his demented buddy's together, put some ad in the paper for cheap talent, and tried to make a movie. In one of the earliest scenes where the father is berating the son you can see that, although the actors keep screwing up their lines they kept filming and left it in the final print. The grainy stock of the film, the inventive although cheap special effects, and the down-trodden feel of this picture really put you into the subconscious pocket of something brewing in a crude psychopath's mind. Scene after scene is dragged out mercilessly as the filmmakers try to fill the legal feature-length time. One scene has the son sitting in a bar watching the band AMERICAN XPRESS play through two lackluster 70's contemporary tunes. This had me wondering what ever happened to American Xpress, the band featured in some serial killer's home movie "Three on a Meathook"? I wont spoil the end for you, but I will say that you do not watch this movie with the expectation of being entertained: you watch it to experience something a blood-letter would dream.

As the title suggests, Three on a Meathook is a grainy and grisly slice of seventies American horror, although it offers slightly more than similar genre films. The film is apparently based on the classic and influential story of Ed Gein, although aside from the rustic setting, mother themes and the fact that people die; this one strays a lot from the story, and actually takes more influence from Gein-inspired classics such as Psycho. It's obvious that the film was shot on a very low budget, as it doesn't feel completely finished, and that along with the bare locations, bad acting and short running time ensure the budget limitations shine through. The plot revolves around a father and son that live on a farm. The film opens with four girls breaking down while on a camping trip, and after taking up the son's nice offer of a bed at his farmhouse, they decide to stay there. However, they all wind up dead and the son is dismayed when he finds out that he is the killer! His father helps him clean up the mess, but when he brings another girl home; it looks as though history is going to repeat itself.

As you might expect, there's a fair amount of gore here - although perhaps not as much as in other similar films. Still, what there is in terms of gore is well done, and Three on a Meathook features some excellent kill scenes, most of which are misogynistic. The film constantly hints at a twisted ending, and indeed the mystery behind the murderer is so obvious that I'm convinced the audience is supposed to guess that straight away - but luckily, William Girdler's film has more in reserve, and the twist that comes at the conclusion is a definite surprise...although it does hint at how much more shocking the film could have been if it had been incorporated properly into the story rather than just being rolled out at the end. The acting is nothing special, although the director obviously rates his lead stars James Pickett and Charles Kissenger as they both went on to star in two more of his films, The Zebra Killer and Asylum of Satan, both of which may be worth tracking down. The climax to the film is an obvious nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and overall; while this is not exactly great cinema, grindhouse fans will definitely find a lot to like.

I came across this movie in Psychotronic Movie Guide Vol I, and was surprised I could watch it on YouTube. I have done this for Ms. 45, went a few years back to the movie house re release and bought the Blu Ray. What I say on YouTube was unimpressive, the script really was the problem, as the story does not flow as in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I suspect this was the director first or one of his early movies and did not attend film school, and this is true for many independent directors who learned what they could from other directors and production staff including Clint Eastwood. While TCM plays like a reality movies TOaMC is more like a HS dropouts nightmare and I would not have done any better. Watch it, just to say you included it in your viewing history of B movies, but try to watch it free the first time before you invest in a copy.