Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

tomgillespie2002 Like many grindhouse features from the 1970s, William Girdler's Three on a Meathook truly went for broke with its title, an eye-catching promise of blood, guts and mutilation to draw in a naive audience hoping for a terrifying time. What they got however, was two minutes of butchery thrown together with a $20,000 budget, followed by 80 minutes of melodrama with an uncomfortably drawn-out section dedicated to a naff rock band performing on stage. Three on a Meathook stays true to the grindhouse trend of failing to deliver on its enticing title, and instead treats us to a plethora of mannequin-like acting, dialogue no human has ever spoken before, and audio that sounds like it was recorded through a pillow.Four attractive young ladies decide to go on a weekend trip to the lake, where they naturally embark on a bit of skinny-dipping and frolicking in the sun. Only little do they know, shy and handsome farmhand Billy Townsend (James Carroll Pickett) is watching them. Unfortunately for the girls, their vehicle breaks down on a country road, and it isn't too long until Billy's truck pulls up behind them to offer his services. He's no mechanic, so he instead provides a bed for the night at his farm. With his mother recently deceased, Billy lives alone his Pa (Charles Kissinger), who certainly isn't happy when he sees who his son has for company. It seems that Billy has a dark past involving women, and his Pa is quick to remind him of the dangers of having such a temptation in his very home. That night, the ladies are butchered one after the other: one is stabbed in the bath, two are shot, and the other has her head removed with an axe.Horrified at what he doesn't remember doing, Billy takes a trip into the city to get himself together, where he meets beautiful barmaid Sherry (Sherry Steiner). Three on a Meathook blows its load way too early, focusing on the blossoming romance between the two youngsters after a violent opening twenty minutes, with Sherry proving to be one of the most unintentionally weird love interests in horror history. Not only does she bring home a drunk stranger muttering the words "I couldn't have done it," but sleeps naked beside him even after he wets the bed. The climax brings a twist that evokes the Ed Gein case, which seems to fit nicely with the creepy rural setting, but you'll be too beaten down by the tedium beforehand to care. Three on a Meathook isn't the worst example of the genre, but it will make you claw at your own face for the majority of its running time. Girdler would go on the direct the likes of Sheba, Baby and Grizzly.

trashgang 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.

BaronBl00d Definitely cheaply-made, bad horror film from the early 1970s that is oddly fascinating as when one catches a forest on fire and cannot turn away. Director William Girdler's first feature is interesting to say the least and problematic as well. Girdler you may remember directed those wonderful cheesy 70s horror films such as The Manitou, Asylum of Satan, Day of the Animals, and Grizzly. His films often have lamentable qualities but are always watchable. Three on a Meathook is no exception though still largely unpolished as it is his first. The film is very - grainy - of course I was going to use that word! The set designs, on-location shots, costumes, and what little special effects we are given pale in comparison to other Girdler films(okay, maybe NOT Asylum of Satan!). The acting is sub-par with no one really giving a good performance but the two male leads - James Pickett as Billy a boy told that he cannot stay around women otherwise he will butcher them and Charles Kissenger as his Pa - alcoholic and seemingly in a trance through much of the film - do fair enough work. The girls that die are, well, basically talentless though all beautiful. Watch for Elvis squeeze Linda Thompson looking ever so delicious(no pun here either). You get what you would expect in a movie like this: gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence. The nudity is almost immediate and stays the course throughout; however, the violence is not nearly as hyperbolic as the title Three on a Meathook might suggest. There are a lot of talking scenes with long drawn points being made. I particularly loved the scene where Billy's girlfriend Sherry and her friend Becky come up to the farm and run through fields and Becky fakes falling down and hiding while some ridiculous music plays. She falls then again and laughs. Sickening. Or how about the speech Becky gives us about her camp counselor husband going to fight in the war? Man, that was Oscar worthy! Okay, I am being facetious. The corny scenes and dialog abound and wait until you see that hokey ending that makes little sense. Or how about the band that plays two whole songs just to make the movie long enough? It is easy to go on and on, but for what it is Three on a Meathook is fun if anything in a so-bad-its-good vein. I was entertained and given a few hearty laughs as well.

Coventry 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.