I love this movie so much

From my favorite movies..

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

'Incident On and Off a Mountain Road' is thoroughly enjoyable, atmospheric horror with a lightning pace, delivering action, gore, and laughs in equal measure. It's based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, and co-scripted by Don Coscarelli, who'd previously brought Lansdale's story "Bubba Ho-Tep" to life. Pretty, appealing dancer / actress Bree Turner plays Ellen, who's motoring through the wilderness one night when she ends up in the domain of Moonface, deliciously played by John De Santis. Moonface is a towering, pale psycho with steel teeth who snatches unwary travellers and turns them into macabre works of art in front of his home. From then on it's a constant struggle for Ellen to keep her wits about her and remember the lessons taught to her by her domineering husband Bruce (Ethan Embry, in what was a real change-of-pace role and performance for him at the time). Bruce is a survivalist, see, and is constantly thinking about preparing for the worst. So this rocking episode is both an interesting look into the survivalist mentality, as well as a tried and true horror story with enough grisliness - including some implied ocular violence - to satisfy the gore hound in many of us. It also does great things with lighting and sound; when Moonface fires up his eye gouging machine, sirens go off! It has some great brief bits of grim irony, when some of the booby traps that Ellen sets up for Moonface don't work out as planned. Much of the humour is courtesy of Coscarelli's "good luck charm", actor Angus Scrimm a.k.a. The Tall Man of the "Phantasm" series, who plays demented Buddy, who chatters non-stop; the actor is just a hoot in the role. This is a fun, fun episode that begins a little quietly but soon starts coming up with shocks (when will characters ever learn to keep their eyes on the road?) and thrills that last right up until the end. Eight out of 10.

This episode seemed to take a rather reflexive look at horror, so that we see the results of a female protagonist who actually knows how to defend herself and is resourceful enough to actually take out the antagonist(s). After crashing into another car, Ellen finds herself being hunted by the local, serial killing ghoul. But instead of making the typical mistakes of women in horror films on the run from death, Ellen uses her defensive training that she learned from her obsessive and abusive husband, who lies dead in her trunk. The irony in the story lies in the fact that after Ellen uses her training to kill Bruce, she then gets pulled into a horrible situation requiring all her skills to survive. What's really great in the episode that made the whole thing worthwhile was that Ellen was able to leave Bruce's body at the home of the now dead psychopath, strung up on a crucifix like all of the ghoul's victims, washing Ellen's hands of the revenge she took on her husband. Quite nicely done.

Masters of Horror: Don Coscarelli: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road: 8 out of 10: In many ways fifty minutes is the perfect length for a horror movie. Incident certainly has enough plot for a full length feature, but this is a story broken down to its core elements without any unnecessary filler. (It has a bit of a Twilight Zone feel as a result.) Masters of Horror is that wonderful Showtime series that has produced some great horror films and some guilty pleasures (in particular Clive Barker's Haeckel's Tale). Incident got this anthology series off to a very strong start.The film is about a woman that has a car accident on a deserted stretch of rain soaked mountain road. She quickly finds herself perused by a serial killer (dubbed Moonface) who is busy chasing a previous victim. She turns out not to be the damsel in distress that we suspected, as she has had survival training from her boyfriend which the film doles out in flashback. It is also interesting as one can see the progression of her relationship with the boyfriend as it coincides her conflict with Moonface.Director Don Coscarielli runs a tight ship with plenty of surprises in both plot and scope. The acting by all is above board with a particular nod to John DeSantis as the serial killer. Moonface, with his chrome teeth, baldhead and big shiny knife; he is such a quality villain that it seems a shame he is in such a small film. Moonface certainly could hold his own with the Jason’s and Leatherface’s of the world. In fact, he has that childlike quality that made Leatherface such an endearing character,. (Not to mention they share the same interior decorator.) The gore is good, the set design is excellent and the movie is simply never boring. Add on a story with depth and layers and you have a very strong start to an excellent series.

Masters of Horror: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road starts late one stormy night as Ellen (Bree Turner) is driving along an isolated mountain road in the middle of nowhere, while trying to change the radio station she crashes into another car parked in the middle of the road. A bit shaken but generally unhurt Ellen gets out to check the other car for injured passengers by only finds lots of blood stains which lead off into the forest by the side of the road, calling to see whether anyone needs help Ellen is confronted by a huge deformed mutant freak named Moonchild (John DeSantis) who enjoys kidnapping, torturing & brutally killing just about anyone he meets & Ellen is on his hit list...This Canadian American co-production was episode 1 from season 1 of the Masters of Horror TV series, directed by Don Coscarelli this is where Masters of Horror started I suppose & it's a decent enough episode to kick things off. The script by Coscarelli & Stephen Romano was based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale & felt like Wrong Turn (2003) condensed into 50 odd minutes with less character's, while that isn't automatically a bad thing Incident on and Off a Mountain Road is far from original & in fact one could call it a generic rip-off of any backwoods brutality slasher film of which there has been plenty. It moves along at a good pace, the few character's that are here are good although Moonchild isn't given any sort of background expect that he likes to kill people & has silver teeth. This has an unusual narrative where every so often there are flashbacks to Ellen & her husband which at first seem insignificant but develop into a mini film of it's own & the two plots come together at the end for a rather odd feeling climax but generally work well together as they run side-by-side.Director Coscarelli does alright, there are plenty of familiar horror elements here like the isolated mountain wilderness location, the thunder storm, a backwoods psycho killer, the house full of the skeletons of his previous victims & the expected stalk & slash scenes. There's a good atmosphere to it & there are some effective moments. There's not too much gore here, there's a leg impalement which miraculously heals when the person is seen latter on, there's plenty of dead bodies in various stages of decay, lots of fake blood splashed around & a few stab wounds, nothing that memorable though.Techncially it's good, it's well made with decent production values & nice special effects. Since there's only four people in the film & one of them doesn't say a single word the acting needed to be good & it is.Incident on and Off a Mountain Road is a good start to what has become a very hit-and-miss series, still this one is worth a watch on a pure entertainment level but just don't expect anything groundbreaking or outstanding.