INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD (Coscarelli, 2005)

Sat and watched TV tonight; nothing else for it when they're practically showing your backyard on CNN. Glenn Beck went on TV tonight and talked about the "culture of death", how we're raising our children on violent video games and movies and not spending enough time eating dinner together, as families. Glenn is a fucking douchebag and if you've never seen his show, count yourself lucky. He randomly removes and replaces his eyeglasses on a whim, and it's every bit as annoying as it sounds. He's also careful to distinguish between "us" and "them"; he believes that he is a private citizen, rather than a nationally-known radio and television pundit, and he makes sure to rage against "the media" like he's not just another part of it. Nancy Grace does the same thing, masquerading as a defender of our nation's children, and at the same time, flashing their lifeless images on your screen with "serious" music playing over top so that you're sure what you're watching is Important, and in no way exploitation.

Glenn Beck was on TV tongiht talking about the Amish and how this school shooting incident is going to make them pull even further back from the sins of modern society. Anyone who lives close to Lancaster County, of course, realizes what utter bullshit this is. Glenn's never heard of the rampant accusations of incest, rape, and in-breeding among the Amish, apparently. To pretend that somewhere in central Pennsylvania there exists a haven of pure sinlessness, untouched by the evils of man, is ridiculous. Of course, he rolled out a child psychiatrist, the type of person he'd usually dismiss as a quack, except, naturally, in this instance, when the child psychiatrist agreed with Glenn. Yes, violence in the media creates violence in real life, and if we all only sat down to meals together and held hands and taught our kids the difference between reality and fantasy, we wouldn't have any more school shootings. It doesn't take any one party too long to latch onto other's tragedy and promote their own agenda, does it? The Christians only needed one day before they rolled Michael W. fucking Smith into Lancaster to play at their candlelight vigils and pretend that this is really about them.

After a night of watching this trash dressed up as serious journalism, I was in the mood for a nasty little movie, something that made no pretenses of being significant and instead was honest enough to wallow, nay, revel, in its own utter filth. MANIAC, I thought, would do the trick, but the VHS is lost somewhere to eternity. (Or the closet in Brandie's room.) INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD, however, was right out in the open, sitting on top of my television set. This was the first MASTERS OF HORROR episode that aired, and from the four that I have on DVD, I'm really saddened that I don't have Showtime right now. The second season is kicking off soon and if it's anything like the ones I've watched, it should be a fun time.

INCIDENT was made by Don Coscarelli (BUBBA HO-TEP, PHANTASM, the upcoming BUBBA NOSFERATU) and goddamn, did it ever hit the spot. It's really your rather basic slasher/survival horror story, told with every intercut flashbacks. A lady driving on a (you guessed it) mountain road runs off the side and crashes. She is then chased by a strange, enormous forest creature with a pretty bitchin' knife. The flashbacks concern her relationship with her survivalist husband, who eventually becomes emotionally and physically abusive. The film, by the end, becomes a sort of feminist fable, and, indeed, a comment on the slasher sub-genre in general, especially TEXAS CHAIN SAW. Coscerelli works from a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, he of BUBBA HO-TEP and Jonah Hex fame, and Landsdale and Coscerelli end up on an extremely entertaining commentary track together. Lansdale says he wanted to create a slasher story that didn't include a helpless female victim, and so INCIDENT was born. By the end of the picture, everyone's got blood on their hands, including the stereotypical female survival (an archetype that Joe Bob Briggs refers to as the "Last Girl"). But the difference between INCIDENT and CHAIN SAW is that in INCIDENT, the Last Girl doesn't just survive, she wins. I don't want to give too much away, but the difference here is vital and clear and if you're at all interested in this, you should track down the DVD.

Like with CIGARETTE BURNS, Coscerelli would've benefitted from a bigger budget and a longer shooting schedule, but part of the appeal of these episodes is that they're all sort of low budget cool. They end up looking great but the special effects can get sort of cheesy at times (through no fault of the always amazing Greg Nicotero) and characterization can be sacrificed for time reasons. But when I watched INCIDENT a second time, with the commentary track on, the rather expedited character arch of the Last Girl makes sense. It's the kind of picture that grows with a second viewing, where every single image takes on a greater signicifance the second time through. Great stuff. Travis says check it out.