"The Pick Up" Review - Written by Anthony T

The Pick Up
Year: 2009
Directors: John Carchietta, Carl Morano
Studio: Fever Dream Productions
Stars: Georgia Kate Haege, Chris Cusano, Sergio Jones
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 26 Mins
Official Website: http://www.fleshforthebeast.com/thepickup/






“The Pick Up” is a short film that bridges the gaps between “Flesh for the Beast” and it’s upcoming sequel “Flesh for the Beast 2”, which be out sometime next year. The film is about a strange man who picks up a mysterious woman on the site of the road. The woman offers the man, a sexual encounter that he will never forget. They go to a motel, which is run by an odd and creepy manager. Soon the man will realize, his sexual encounter will proceed in a progressively bizarre manner to the point that not every one checks out of this motel.

If the upcoming “Flesh of the Beast 2” is anything like this, then it might be even better than the Terry West film back in 2002, even though I still liked that film.

“The Pick Up” is a very bloody send off, to the grindhouse films of the seventies and splatter films of the eighties. Directors John Carchietta and Carl Morano gets you into the grove of this film though the various elements that you would see typically in a grindhouse film with the long takes with no dialogue and cheesy music in the background. The film even has a David Lynch type moment, where one of the characters is acting so oddly, but you can’t help as it grabs your attention. Their direction proves very effective, as you get drawn into the story. Carchietta and Morano also kept the tone of the film very dark, by using the dark lighting to their advantage. It helps establishes the dark tone that is present in the film’s story. The directors also do a good job getting the performances, to the point that you’re interested in the film and making the effects very bloody and downright brutal.

The screenplay is what makes this short film, very enjoyable. Carchietta and Morano do a good job developing the film’s story. They do that, by just focusing on the affair that a man having with a call girl. Sounds like the same story, that you’ve seen before, but what makes that interesting here is, the writers give a lot of detail about the man, in the first ten minutes of the film, so that you get the general idea about his person. But what makes this screenplay very attractive to me, the characters in the film. First, you have the man, then you have a woman, who is mysterious in her own right, finally, you have the hotel manager, who came right out of a David Lynch film. You’ll get the picture, if have a chance to catch it, this weekend at the Fangoria Weekend of Horror (For more information, scroll down to the bottom of this review.) in New York.

This is a very good prequal to “Flesh for the Beast 2”, which is slated to come out, sometime next year. “The Pick Up” will make you thing twice, before having a one night stand.

Upcoming Screenings:

June 6th 9:30 PM “Another Hole in Head Festival” San Francisco, CA

June 7th 6:00 PM: “Fangoria Weekend of Horror”, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City, New York.

June 13th 5:00 PM “Another Hole in Head Festival” San Francisco, CA

June 18th 9:30 PM “Another Hole in Head Festival” San Francisco, CA