On a deserted mountain road at night, Ellen crashes into another car that's left on the road, and after that, her car won't start. She goes out to see if there's another person in the other car, but when a monster-like man shows up, she flees into the forest. Being chased through the forest, Ellen starts setting traps for the monster, and fights back with any means necessary. But after a while she's captured and soon finds herself locked up in some sort of a basement where horrible things happen.
Incident on and Off a Mountain Road was the first addition to the Masters of Horror series, and was directed and co-written by Don Coscarelli, (Bubba Ho-Tep, Phantasm). It's sort of a cat and mouse flick for a while were a pretty girl is being chased by a monster-like man, who looks like one of the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes. During the chase, and during the rest of the movie, there are flashbacks every now and then, telling the story about Ellen and her former husband who was obsessed with survivalism and self-protection.
On one hand it sucked being married to the guy, but on the other hand, he learned her a lot about how to protect herself, how to survive and how to handle possible enemies. And being chased and taken prisoner by some mutant guy, she can apply everything she learned earlier in order to escape. This is a good thing for her I guess, but for the viewer it's not as good. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent story, and the movie's very entertaining. It's just that the monster guy is first off not scary enough, and secondly, he's too weak and not nearly as brutal as I would've liked him to be.
Actually, Ellen's husband is more scary than the actual monster-like guy. Since he's a normal looking dude, but who has something that's seriously wrong inside of his head, it makes him a bigger threat, while the monster guy is just, well, what you expect him to be. So even if I didn't like the guy, the story about him and Ellen is actually quite good and well developed. Anyway, she had to deal with her husband, and now she has to deal with the monster, but can't tell you how it goes though.
The acting is ok, and so is the scenery, while the lack of gore is not ok, and it's not half as scary as one wishes it would've been. Still, it works and is a pretty entertaining flick, and a good start to a great series. It starts off right away, and keeps feeding the story while there's a lot of horror action inbetween. What it gets credit for is that it starts out as a typical slasher kind of flick and could've easily been one, but instead it manages to do something else and also delivering, if not the least bit original, a pretty good story.
Incident on and Off a Mountain Road had a pretty worn-out plot, that dealt with a serial killer in a remote area who preys on those who pass by. Still, there was more to it than that, and the flashbacks used on and off throughout the movie, made it develop into something else than your average slasher type of flick. Far from great, but entertaining and a good start to a great series.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Don Coscarelli
WRITING CREDITS: Stephen Romano, Don Coscarelli
GENRE: Horror
CAST: John DeSantis, Ethan Embry, Bree Turner
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 51 min
RATING: 5/10
Masters of Horror (S01E01): Incident on and Off.. Website/IMDB Click here
Masters of Horror (S01E01): Incident on and Off.. Trailer Click here
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