Pretty Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An isolated farmhouse, a surly middle-aged redneck who smokes an unusual kind of meat ("It's the only meat like it in these parts," avers his troubled son), and lots of slinky female victims are the ingredients of this dreary, no-budget "Psycho" knockoff. It's awkwardly funny in spots, but not fun: without all the horror props that played such a major part in his previous film "Asylum of Satan", director William Girdler's limitations are painfully evident. Charles Kissinger turns in a decent performance as the aforementioned purveyor of smoked meat, and there are some appropriately low-rent gore effects by former Herschell Gordon Lewis acolyte Pat Patterson, but the film loses steam about twenty minutes in and never recovers. If you grew up renting horror movies every Friday night at your local VHS outlet, you might be able to muster some affection for "Three on a Meathook"; if not, you'll probably just feel mildly annoyed.

What a load of rubbish. This is a typical low budget American psychological horror drama except the horror is unconvincing and the psychological is pathetic. Gratuitous nudity of nubile young females, okay, that's a plus, but why would anyone want to murder them and hang them on meat hooks? That is of course a rhetorical question; there have been plenty of real horrors of this nature, and this is said to be based loosely on the well-known tale of Ed Gein - incredibly loosely, it would appear, but seriously, is this entertainment? The film begins with a mass murder, but after that it is incredibly slow; the best thing about it is the music, and really that is not much of a compliment.

What's in a name, the title of this flick is never represented in the movie. Okay, there is one shot, maybe 5 seconds were you can see, euh, 4 girls on a meathook. Anyway, a title like that attracted the real geeks out there. So this movie became a cult favorite. But it never had a proper release. The only way to catch it is on VHS and even they are rare. What we have here is an OOP, oh yes, I know, there are some DVD releases, also OOP, but they were just rip offs of the VHS. That is what I have, a DVD release. What makes it unique is that it is signed by Linda Thompson. The blond one who's naked all the time and get killed earlier in the movie. So far I never found one on the Net signed. Enough of my pride. The movie itself, is really a grindhouse release. Due the fact that it was an US release we all know what that means, NTSC format. And being in the business we all know what that means here in Europe, Never The Same Color. Indeed, when they cut from on shot to another then yellow rules and next shot green appears as the main color. Oh yeah, never been colorized afterwards. So it's low budget. But the editing is okay, the score is okay, lipsync is sometimes a problem but the quality of the film they used is terrible. There are a lot of drops and scratches on it. But that makes it more and more grindhouse. The only failure the movie has is that it was advertised as based on the life of Ed Gein. No way it does. It starts of pretty well, you are only 10 seconds in the movie and Linda, who signed my DVD, yeah yeah, already appears in a T&A shot. No problems the first 20 minutes. You know the story, 4 birds go for a hike in the weekend, car breaks down, a guy passes by and take them to his place. Father isn't happy with girls in the house so they all die. The effects used are cheap but they used the red stuff very good. It never is gory but it works, watch the decapitation how they edited that. It works. But after 20 minutes the movie falls down, becomes slow and is nothing more than a love story. At the last 15 minutes the blood flows again. If they only had used the other 50 minutes to do something with it. Again, it never bored me due the grindhouse/ drive in style. It has a lot of gratuitous nudity, 70 style so full bush, anyway. If you come up to a copy of it don't hesitate to hook on it but you must have a grindhouse feeling.

Ultra-low-budget, skid row version of Psycho lands firmly in the category of so-bad-its-good!Why is it that every time handsome, young Billy brings a girl home that she ends up butchered?One of a number of drive-in horror flicks that William Girdler made in the '70's, this one being fairly memorable. As with many films of its budget, the raw, natural settings add to the moody believability of the picture. James Pickett turns in a decent performance as the films main character, who seems to have some problems indeed. Charles Kissinger plays off well enough as Pickett's odd father. Girdler gives the film a gritty, but nicely moody music score.As with many exploitation films of its day, there's plenty of gore and skin to see. After all, what would you expect from a movie with this memorable title! All in all, Three on a Meathook is a film that's certainly not for all tastes! Fans of the B genre, especially from this era will likely enjoy this horrific and unintentional funny flick.** 1/2 out of ****