Three on a Meathook (1972)

Very well executed

The greatest movie ever made..!

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.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I don't really have anything to add that isn't already posted in the comment section for this movie. I am just going to summarize things that others have said that I agree with.This is a gritty, low-budget exploitation movie with a 70's feel. You will notice similarities to Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and supposedly it is inspired by the same true-life serial killer. It has some gore and nudity, and quite a bit of slow-moving filler. If you are bothering to track this movie down, you probably already have seen several like it and know what to expect.The plot involves an isolated farm boy who lives with his father. When the movie begins, four young ladies are traveling to his neck of the woods for a girls-only camping trip. Their car breaks down and he invites them to stay at his place, where he lives with his dad. Twenty minutes into the movie, and all four girls are dead.I really had to keep watching to see what else the director would do for the rest of this full-length movie after accomplishing what most movies would take their entire running time to do. Instead of following the formula, this one switches things up and has the boy head into town to drink away his troubles. It seems he murdered the girls without realizing what he was doing, and apparently this was not the first time something like this happened. The shot of the young killer walking down the neon-light street with his hands in his pockets seems to suggest Peter Parker more than a pick-ax murderer. Luckily, he gets drunk and an attractive bartender takes him home, because that's what girls did in the seventies, isn't it? They end up getting along, and he invites her to stay at his farm. She accepts, and it looks like the horror will occur all over again.I usually never even try to figure how movies are going to end, but I saw where this one was going VERY early on. It contains most of the elements of trashy 70's horror, such as a weird, repetitive "score," poor acting, ridiculous dialog, a grainy yet naturalistic look, and retro fashions. In the middle of the movie, there is a band playing in the bar where the main character goes to drink, and we watch them play two entire songs as if they were the musical guests on an episode of SNL. The movie is unintentionally funny, and I had to find something else to do during long stretches where very little was happening. However, as a fan of these sorts of curiosities, I enjoyed the experience overall, at least upon my first viewing. I don't think I could sit through it again.I also want to say that I have seen the last movie this director made, titled Manitou. It is actually pretty impressive to see the progress he made in the time between these two movies. I was saddened to learn that he died at a young age after only six years of writing and directing horror movies. He seems like he was on track to becoming a very prolific filmmaker.

Okay, admittedly, "Three on a Meathook" is a pretty damn terrible, god-awful film and most normal people will probably find it an unendurable cinematic experience to sit through. The production values are unimaginably poor, the supposedly shocking plot twists are laughably predictable, the acting performances are miserable, the photography and editing are hideously amateurish and, even with a running time of barely 80 minutes, at least half of the film is purely redundant padding footage. But still, regardless of all its shortcoming and stupidities, I can list numerous reasons why this sickly gem ranks amongst my all-time favorite early 70's grindhouse flicks. So, in case you insist on reading an unbiased and twenty-four carat objective review, you should probably quit reading mine right now… First and foremost, "Three on a Meathook" was the debut of devoted horror writer/director William Girdler. Girdler was clearly horror-obsessed at young age already and remained extremely busy during the next six years of his well-filled but painfully too short career. He was barely 25 years old when he debuted with this gritty "Psycho"-inspired shocker, but the film itself also inspired a whole series of grainy redneck-horrors, maybe even including Tobe Hooper's classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Girdler then quickly specialized in cashing in on contemporary popular trends in the horror industry. He made his very own violent-cop-above-the-law flick ("The Zebra Killer"), as well as Blaxploitation films ("Sheba, Baby", "Abby") and a Satanic Cult movie ("Asylum of Satan"). His most famous films are the notorious Jaws-on-land classic "Grizzly" and his supremely demented imitation of "The Exorcist", entitled "The Manitou". William Girdler died at the tender age of 30, when his helicopter crashed whilst spotting locations for already another film. With NINE fine movies in just 6 years, imagine what he could have achieved if he hadn't sat foot in that helicopter … Back to "Three on a Meathook" specifically; this film is to me the purest embodiment of devoted early 70's grindhouse film-making. Girdler didn't have much of a budget to work with, but nearly every penny he did have went straight to the accomplishment of bloody make-up effects and scenery to make the film appear more grim & disturbing. This film is politically incorrect as hell, with uncompromising gore and gratuitous nudity aplenty, and the main characters are your average and stereotypical "dumb" countryside folks. Clumsily disguised as a tragic love-story, "Three on a Meathook" serves one deviant story twisted after another (although, admittedly, with some dreadful musical interludes and pointless "we're falling in love" montages in between) and the wholesome works towards an indescribably frenzied climax.The film opens with the clichéd premise of four young girls deciding to go camping in a remote woodsy area. One topless swimming party and multiple girlish chuckles later, their car breaks down in the middle of the night, but the simple-minded farmer's boy Billy – who previously observed the girls as they were skinny dipping - comes to the rescue and invites them to spend the night at the farm with himself and pa. The father worriedly warns Billy about what happens when he gets "too close" to girls, but the next morning the girls are all reduced to lifeless corpses. When going into town to drink away his misery, Billy falls in love with a waitress and takes her and a friend back to the farm where the horror threatens to repeat itself. You don't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out the truth behind the murders, but still the script provides an extra ingenious (and practically unpredictable) twist at the very end of the film. The narrative structure is wildly uneven and the padding footage is horrible, but the at least sequences that truly matter are morbidly atmospheric and misogynistic. If you're into this type of questionable cinema, I can't recommend "Three on a Meathook" wholeheartedly enough. That's a guarantee, because I have yet to encounter a grindhouse fanatic who doesn't appreciate hatchet murders, pick-axe horror, stabbing and nasty meat-cleavers.

As the title suggests, Three on a Meathook is a grainy and grisly slice of seventies American horror, although it offers slightly more than similar genre films. The film is apparently based on the classic and influential story of Ed Gein, although aside from the rustic setting, mother themes and the fact that people die; this one strays a lot from the story, and actually takes more influence from Gein-inspired classics such as Psycho. It's obvious that the film was shot on a very low budget, as it doesn't feel completely finished, and that along with the bare locations, bad acting and short running time ensure the budget limitations shine through. The plot revolves around a father and son that live on a farm. The film opens with four girls breaking down while on a camping trip, and after taking up the son's nice offer of a bed at his farmhouse, they decide to stay there. However, they all wind up dead and the son is dismayed when he finds out that he is the killer! His father helps him clean up the mess, but when he brings another girl home; it looks as though history is going to repeat itself.As you might expect, there's a fair amount of gore here - although perhaps not as much as in other similar films. Still, what there is in terms of gore is well done, and Three on a Meathook features some excellent kill scenes, most of which are misogynistic. The film constantly hints at a twisted ending, and indeed the mystery behind the murderer is so obvious that I'm convinced the audience is supposed to guess that straight away - but luckily, William Girdler's film has more in reserve, and the twist that comes at the conclusion is a definite surprise...although it does hint at how much more shocking the film could have been if it had been incorporated properly into the story rather than just being rolled out at the end. The acting is nothing special, although the director obviously rates his lead stars James Pickett and Charles Kissenger as they both went on to star in two more of his films, The Zebra Killer and Asylum of Satan, both of which may be worth tracking down. The climax to the film is an obvious nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and overall; while this is not exactly great cinema, grindhouse fans will definitely find a lot to like.

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 ****