AKA 3 on a Meathook! (UK)
(video title)
(video title)
Director: William Girdler
Writer: William Girdler
CAST---
Charles Kissinger ... Pa Townsend
James Pickett ... Billy Townsend
Sherry Steiner ... Sherry
Madelyn Buzzard ... Becky
John Shaw
Marsha Tarbis
Carolyn Thompson
Linda Thompson ... Debbie
Runtime:80 min
Writer: William Girdler
CAST---
Charles Kissinger ... Pa Townsend
James Pickett ... Billy Townsend
Sherry Steiner ... Sherry
Madelyn Buzzard ... Becky
John Shaw
Marsha Tarbis
Carolyn Thompson
Linda Thompson ... Debbie
Runtime:80 min
THREE ON A MEATHOOK (1972)
Welcome my friends to a poorly thought-out , yet somehow interesting yarn about a farm boy who thinks
he may be a killer and the beautiful women he may have killed.
I want to make it clear, right freaking here, at the start of my review, that the title is grossly misleading.
Sometimes film’s titles get swapped and changed to catchier fare, but “THREE ON A MEATHOOK“ is the
original title. The meat hook scene is in fact just ONE SHOT near the end of the film and there are at
least four people on meat hooks. Girdler, what went on in your mind ?
Four young college,(or high school…does it really matter?) girls set out on some sort of a road trip to
bond and swim naked in a lake. This was a nice scene early in the film. As they drive at night to some
other place their car breaks down. I’m fine with this stereotypical set-up, it works. Our killer Billy comes
out of the night in his father’s beat up pick-up to give the girls a lift to his farmhouse. When they get
there Pa gets angry at Billy but in the end the girls spend the night and get killed by an unknown
assailant. The killings include shotgun blasts to the abdomen, a cheap decapitation and a kinda cool
knife attack while girl is soaking in bathtub. The latter was the best killing in the film and all this happens
in just act one.
Billy lives alone with his father ,you may find similarities with Hitchcock’s “PSYCHO” in their relationship,
and the isolated farmhouse with the sexually awkward killer has Ed Gein touches. The second act is
probably the most difficult to bear for some people, but I have read that some think it’s close to brilliant.
As I watched the second act where Billy is confused about his identity, and whether or not he committed
these murders I switched from finding it refreshing and pleasantly odd to questioning the logic of having
Billy at a bar and filming the band playing there for what seemed uncomfortably long. I like weird, gritty
characters, that’s why I followed it through but I was so looking forward to a meat hook massacre. I gave
up this idea somewhere during this peculiar second act.
But while drinking alone he meets a beautiful cocktail waitress who seems to like him. Shit ! This guy is
like a girly nerd, a wuss lord. How these two hook up I don’t quite follow. But Billy passes out from
drinking too much and wham ! Wakes up in bed with Sherry (the cocktail waitress.) She says she
brought him home because she saw he was deeply worried and didn’t want to see him in jail. So logically
she undresses him and herself and slip into bed but she says the didn’t screw?? In a brisk move as she
is getting out of bed you see a good soft boob and what my imagination tells me might be a pie. Ahh,
nothing like a good 70’s girl !
They start seeing each other and Billy wants her to spend the weekend at his farmhouse, to show her
the beauty of nature. Billy should consider his tight-ass Pa before planning sleepovers, remember what
happened last time. Young naïve Billy, are you a killer or a dumbass ? Billy want’s to know a woman,
intimately. So on the night where Sherry and her girlfriend join Billy at the farm Pa disapprovingly gets
drunk and acts like an ass. They have a quiet dinner. The meat is actually smoked human meat.(more
on this later) After supper Billy finds a couch and screws Sherry. This is the most miserably shot sex
scene I have ever scene. You can only hear them breathing and see a faint black outline of what’s going
on. Horrible.
During the night Sherry’s friend get’s killed by our mystery killer. In the morning Sherry wanders out of
the house looking for her friend. And here comes our famous meat hook shot where she glimpses the
fresh human cadavers ready for many a good hot meal. When she comes back into the house Pa is
cutting a severed human leg and says he’s preparing supper. (didn’t they just wake up?)Pa comes at
Sherry with the bloody cleaver. Suddenly Billy comes from behind Pa and throws him off balance. Then
just as suddenly as before an old grey haired woman comes through a side door and Pa inadvertently
whacks at her mid section killing her
To wrap things up the old lady that Pa accidentally hacked was his wife, Billy’s dear Ma. For some
reason she got mental and became a cannibal (something we should have seen!) Pa told young Billy
age seven that his Ma had died to hide her gruesome hunger for flesh. He keeps her hidden someplace
in the house and kills Billy’s guests to feed Ma.
Billy is not a killer and in the end I’m actually happy he got off ok and started a new life with Sherry. Pa
was institutionalized and I guess the cannibalism was spreading in the family because Pa had been
preparing smoked meat for years.
In retrospect this movie was only tolerable for the gritty characters, especially Sherry and for the few
killings and naked girls. The story and character development were bizarre but somehow believable.
Just don’t expect much and you might be able to deal with this. I watch bad movies for a living and enjoy
the pain as much as the pleasure. Hopefully you will too !
- Jorge Antonio Lopez
he may be a killer and the beautiful women he may have killed.
I want to make it clear, right freaking here, at the start of my review, that the title is grossly misleading.
Sometimes film’s titles get swapped and changed to catchier fare, but “THREE ON A MEATHOOK“ is the
original title. The meat hook scene is in fact just ONE SHOT near the end of the film and there are at
least four people on meat hooks. Girdler, what went on in your mind ?
Four young college,(or high school…does it really matter?) girls set out on some sort of a road trip to
bond and swim naked in a lake. This was a nice scene early in the film. As they drive at night to some
other place their car breaks down. I’m fine with this stereotypical set-up, it works. Our killer Billy comes
out of the night in his father’s beat up pick-up to give the girls a lift to his farmhouse. When they get
there Pa gets angry at Billy but in the end the girls spend the night and get killed by an unknown
assailant. The killings include shotgun blasts to the abdomen, a cheap decapitation and a kinda cool
knife attack while girl is soaking in bathtub. The latter was the best killing in the film and all this happens
in just act one.
Billy lives alone with his father ,you may find similarities with Hitchcock’s “PSYCHO” in their relationship,
and the isolated farmhouse with the sexually awkward killer has Ed Gein touches. The second act is
probably the most difficult to bear for some people, but I have read that some think it’s close to brilliant.
As I watched the second act where Billy is confused about his identity, and whether or not he committed
these murders I switched from finding it refreshing and pleasantly odd to questioning the logic of having
Billy at a bar and filming the band playing there for what seemed uncomfortably long. I like weird, gritty
characters, that’s why I followed it through but I was so looking forward to a meat hook massacre. I gave
up this idea somewhere during this peculiar second act.
But while drinking alone he meets a beautiful cocktail waitress who seems to like him. Shit ! This guy is
like a girly nerd, a wuss lord. How these two hook up I don’t quite follow. But Billy passes out from
drinking too much and wham ! Wakes up in bed with Sherry (the cocktail waitress.) She says she
brought him home because she saw he was deeply worried and didn’t want to see him in jail. So logically
she undresses him and herself and slip into bed but she says the didn’t screw?? In a brisk move as she
is getting out of bed you see a good soft boob and what my imagination tells me might be a pie. Ahh,
nothing like a good 70’s girl !
They start seeing each other and Billy wants her to spend the weekend at his farmhouse, to show her
the beauty of nature. Billy should consider his tight-ass Pa before planning sleepovers, remember what
happened last time. Young naïve Billy, are you a killer or a dumbass ? Billy want’s to know a woman,
intimately. So on the night where Sherry and her girlfriend join Billy at the farm Pa disapprovingly gets
drunk and acts like an ass. They have a quiet dinner. The meat is actually smoked human meat.(more
on this later) After supper Billy finds a couch and screws Sherry. This is the most miserably shot sex
scene I have ever scene. You can only hear them breathing and see a faint black outline of what’s going
on. Horrible.
During the night Sherry’s friend get’s killed by our mystery killer. In the morning Sherry wanders out of
the house looking for her friend. And here comes our famous meat hook shot where she glimpses the
fresh human cadavers ready for many a good hot meal. When she comes back into the house Pa is
cutting a severed human leg and says he’s preparing supper. (didn’t they just wake up?)Pa comes at
Sherry with the bloody cleaver. Suddenly Billy comes from behind Pa and throws him off balance. Then
just as suddenly as before an old grey haired woman comes through a side door and Pa inadvertently
whacks at her mid section killing her
To wrap things up the old lady that Pa accidentally hacked was his wife, Billy’s dear Ma. For some
reason she got mental and became a cannibal (something we should have seen!) Pa told young Billy
age seven that his Ma had died to hide her gruesome hunger for flesh. He keeps her hidden someplace
in the house and kills Billy’s guests to feed Ma.
Billy is not a killer and in the end I’m actually happy he got off ok and started a new life with Sherry. Pa
was institutionalized and I guess the cannibalism was spreading in the family because Pa had been
preparing smoked meat for years.
In retrospect this movie was only tolerable for the gritty characters, especially Sherry and for the few
killings and naked girls. The story and character development were bizarre but somehow believable.
Just don’t expect much and you might be able to deal with this. I watch bad movies for a living and enjoy
the pain as much as the pleasure. Hopefully you will too !
- Jorge Antonio Lopez
BLOOD
BEASTS
BREASTS
OVERALL
