Masters of Horror 2005: Don Coscarelli - Incident on and off a Mountain Road

Don Coscarelli was the first “Master of Horror” to have his contribution to the 2005 series (probably should have been one season) aired on Showtime. It is a rather straight forward effort with some wise back story into the heroine trying to keep herself from being caught by a pale-headed, metal-teethed, growling psychopath who likes to gouge out the eyes of motorists taking the wrong turn down a mountain road not far distant from his cabin on the hill before impaling them on log crucifixes to decorate the driveway of his home. Coscarelli is smart to keep the pace hopping so that the threadbare and rather simple script and characters don’t become too much of a liability. But nothing about this stays with you for very long afterward. I don’t think that could ever be said about his “Phantasm” films which always had something crazy that stuck in the brain. Fun to see aging Scrimm (May he rest in peace), and he lived another eleven years after this although he didn’t look long for this world…perhaps intentional makeup did that. Scrimm’s “Buddy” can’t seem to shut the fuck up when out-of-towner, Ellen (Bree Turner of the NBC horror series, “Grimm”), seeks to free herself from handcuffs while held to a post in the basement. Buddy pretends to be handcuffed and captured himself only to reveal he’s part of Moonface’s game (if he is the killer’s pops is never revealed, although in his one-sided dialogue with Ellen, he seems to have been with Moonface for quite a duration), sitting up and singing “Dixie” so loud with the cuffs sliding away after encouraging Ellen to remove a small blade from her shoulder—a survival Rambo tactic that goes awry because Moonface wasn’t in position—in order to remove her own handcuffs in an attempt to get away.

This episode, a revisit from me after about ten years, takes us back and forth in time, as Ellen fell for and married a survivalist (Embry) whose charm fades as he begins to adopt paranoid, anti-society traits before eventually raping her. Now Coscarelli uses lightning and dark quite well in order to mask said rape while Ellen convincingly gives us the victim’s inability to escape before ultimately getting even through a belt strap around the throat. That is the final scene after Ellen opens her trunk to reveal quite a secret. But all the flashbacks were not only building to this dead body in the trunk revelation but Ellen’s skills to outwit and even outfight Moonface—obviously gifted the element of surprise, height, girth, and rage—make sense as the episode reaches the conclusion. Ellen’s fear and tears eventually fade as she gains courage and eventually has her hands on a curved knife, gripped after an impressive whip from one position into striking pose. Throughout flashbacks, Ellen is viewed as just a city gal who dates a guy with a father’s cabin in the woods, gradually introduced to knife and gun techniques by him. He wants her prepared and ready, and his lessons eventually do take shape as Ellen—in present day—takes care of herself quite well before fainting from exhaustion. Tactics like traps using panties, scissors, and sharpened sticks, with a careful spike in a pit that fails her due to the use of another captured motorist who isn’t so fortunate to have learned survival techniques, never quite help Ellen to get totally away, but she does somewhat injure him time to time.

Ellen does prove to be quite resourceful and resilient. If anything, her not being a victim but a strong force to be reckoned with is the whole point. The episode does add a bit of trauma to her in order for her to be able to gouge out eyes with a mechanical drill in Moonface’s basement (that sounds off alarming sirens). And Grimm, for his problems caused to her, isn’t just allowed to shirk responsibilities for his actions…Ellen won’t allow it.

If you aren’t looking for something extraordinary, then this might work. Nothing about it is original or all that surprising really. We’ve seen a lot of similar action and horror since this came out in 2005. **/****