Macabre…ish Horror Review: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, 2005/ 51 mins
Ellen (Bree Turner) loses control of her vehicle while driving on a mountain road and hits a vehicle on the side of the road and is knocked out cold, while out she has flashbacks of her husband. He’s a survivalist always preparing for the end.
After regaining consciousness, she checks to see if anyone is the other car. The door is open and it’s bloody inside, there’s also a trail of blood leading to the woods.
Dragging the driver of the other car, is a serial killer called Moonface (John DeSantis). And he’s coming right at her. Ellen doesn’t know she’s in trouble until she sees his and the woman’s (Heather Feeney) face and she yells for help. So she takes off in the other direction into the wilderness.
Meanwhile, she flashes back to her husband, a good guying growing progressively more paranoid. He spends all his free time training her and prepping.
Ellen tries to defend herself the way her husband, Bruce (Ethan Embry) taught her too, even setting up some traps which the other woman becomes trapped in and terribly injured. Ellen inadvertently runs toward his workshop, deep in the forest. Surrounded by corpses, men, women and children. Some posed and many nailed to crosses in various stages of decay. Moonface, hot on her heels dragging the injured woman behind him.
Ellen flashes back to the blow up that meant the end of her marriage.
She wakes up in a corpse strewn basement. Also inside is an insane but otherwise healthy man, Buddy (Angus Scrimm). He is chipper and upbeat and cryptically explains what’s going on while also trying to make friends and sing songs with her.
Soon Moonface arrives and after turning on the genny, the room lights up with lights and sirens from cop cars. He uses a drill press to remove the eyes of the other injured woman after strapping her to a table. She earns a cross of her own, later.
Buddy helps Ellen get free but when Moonface returns, she fights for her life. Just when she thinks it’s over, it gets complicated. Things are not quite as she remembered but it’s about to become horrifyingly clear.
This is episode 1, from season 1 of Masters of Horror, directed by Don Coscarelli. This movie is unexpectedly dark. Good story and effects, good fight choreography. It’s gory and graphic. I just love the cinematography and aesthetic of this film. Well done.
TW: R*pe, domestic violence