Incident On and Off a Mountain Road is yet another entry in the Masters of Horror series from Showtime. This time, the man sitting in the director's chair is, Don Coscarelli and his choice for this entry is an adaptation of a Joe R. Lansdale story.
Ellen (Bree Turner) is traveling alone late one night on a road that is surrounded by a forest and is quite dark and doesn't appear to be a well-traveled road, when she crashes her car and blacks out. While out, she flashes back to a warning her now ex-husband, Bruce (Ethan Embry), a survival enthusiast gave her....'You've always got to expect the unexpected.....and do the unexpected'. When Ellen comes to, she begins to walk away from her vehicle in an attempt to find help and a ride away from the area. Not too far into her walk, she is confronted by a huge man called, 'Moonface' (John De Santis) with a ghostly pale face and a look of murder in his eyes. Ellen does her best to outrun and outfox the hulking Moonface, but she's soon hunted down and taken to Moonface's remote cabin where the corpses of past victims are hanging outside and she's tied up and left alone with a very strange old man (Angus Scrimm) who wants to do nothing more than sing constantly and will obviously be of little help to Ellen's escape plans. The question remains, will Ellen's past tips in surviving anything be enough to help her escape the clutches of Moonface?
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and looks solid, but I'd be surprised if this wasn't a good video offering, giving the relative newness of the video elements. Once again, audio offerings are Dolby Digital (2.0 and 5.1), but no other language options are given, nor is there any subtitles offered. Bonus features are plentiful and include:
-Audio Commentary Track with Director Don Coscarelli and Script Writer Stephen Romano.
-Audio Commentary Track with Director Don Coscarelli and Story Author Joe R. Lansdale.
-Featurettes:
-Predators and Prey: An Interview with Don Coscarelli
-Working with a Master: Don Coscarelli
-On Set: An Interview with John De Santis
-On Set: An Interview with Ethan Embry
-Behind the Scenes: The Making of: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road
-Trailers For Additional Masters of Horror Episodes: Chocolate, Cigarette Burns, Dreams In the Witch-House, Homecoming, Deer Woman, Jenifer, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, Dance of the Dead.
-Still Gallery.
-Don Coscarelli Bio.
-DVD-ROM Features: Screenplay For Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and an Incident On and Off a Mountain Road Screensaver.
-Also On DVD Trailers: Masters of Horror, Room 6, Demon Hunter, The Tooth Fairy.
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road is another solid entry in the series, for me. I've not seen any of the episodes on TV, so this is just the fourth episode I've seen and overall, I've been pleasantly surprised and pleased with the final efforts. I really enjoyed this entry, as it's definitely high on horror and suspense and it's tough to believe so much action was crammed into a 51-minute episode. The story never bogs down and the acting is quite solid and while I haven't seen all the first season episodes and can't say this is the best until I have, this is a strong showing and easy enough to recommend to fellow horror fans. I'm definitely looking forward to the future releases from this series!
Buy Incident On and Off a Mountain Road on DVD at Amazon.com
