Psycho From Texas (1982) AKA Evil + Hate = Kill

Directed by: Jack Collins, Jim Feazell
Starring: John King III

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Bill Phillips: Where you from?
Wheeler: Maine.
Bill: Maine? You sure don't talk like you're from Maine.
Wheeler: The MAIN part of Texas.
Bill: Ha. That's pretty good son.

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My favorite movie genre is 70's hicksploitation, and Psycho From Texas is a damn fine example of what's so great about those movies (ignore the fact that it was released in '82... this thing is pure southern-fried gold). The titular psycho is Wheeler (John King III) - a cocky criminal redneck with a Prince-Valiant haircut, skin-tight blue jeans, and a tendancy to punctuate his speech with random out-of-place bursts of laughter. Throughout the entire movie, King gives one unforgettable line reading after another. Like William Sanderson in Fight for Your Life, it's something you really have to hear to appreciate. Wheeler is hired to kidnap Bill Phillips - a rich oilman - with the idea being that he will hold him hostage for a few days, then release him for a huge ransom.

His contact for the gig is Slick (Tommy Lamey), a jittery local boy with a handlebar mustache and a permanent toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth. Slick's involved in one of the movie's greatest sequences - Phillips escapes when Slick falls asleep, and Slick takes off after him in an impossibly long foot chase that goes through some woods, a herd of cattle, a swamp, a few fields, a pig-sty, a cemetary, a riverside, an finally some sort of floating house. The sequence is intercut with a few scenes of Wheeler back in town, and lasts just under 30 minutes! Everytime you think it's going to be over - at one point the two men are actually laying on the ground next to each other trying to catch their breath - they get a burst of energy and the chase resumes. Here's a hint: you'll know the end is coming the second time you hear Slick yell "Noooooow I got yo' ass!"

Psycho From Texas also has an insane soundtrack... one second you've got spooky music that'd you'd expect to hear when Scooby and the gang check out the basement of an abandoned mansion, and the next there's an energetic bluegrass banjo pickin' song. Sometimes the music fits with the scene, but most of the time it doesn't. At one point a young boy and his father go to meet the sheriff and we inexplicably get - I shit you not - Jingle Bells (and no, the movie isn't set anytime near Christmas).

Other things I like about this movie:
- The fact that every third line from Slick is accented with a random jew harp.
- The old mammy-type maid character who discovers a dead body in her pantry and absolutely loses her shit, crawls through the house, and collapses, convulsing in the front yard.
- Wheeler waving a 6-inch knife like its a machete, and having everyone around him freak out.
- Q: Mr. Wheeler, what's your first name? A: Just Wheeler. No Mr. No other name.
- The flashback sequence where an inbred-looking baby Wheeler watches his mother have sex with a fat redneck. For a long time.
- The scene where some poor waitress (Linnea Quigley) refuses to dance with Wheeler. He pulls her out from behind the bar, screams "Now Bitch. LETS DANCE!." He strips her naked and forces her to dance in place in front of him, and as if that weren't degrading enough, he draws himself a pitcher of beer, then pours it on her while she cries and shuffles from side to side. Amazing.

VHS copies of Psycho From Texas pop up on eBay from time to time, so this is one you should be able to track down. I own a Paragon Big Box, which features the ugliest fucking box-art of all time... a retard with MS Paint could do a better job than this piece of shit:

It took me a while to figure out what I was looking at when I got the box...I finally made out a hat and gun... I'm still not sure what that pinkish thing is supposed to be... a hand? And the back is even worse. There's a shot of Wheeler's crotch, a naked chick (that part's OK), and a bloody hand on shag carpeting. How about that text? "He was a stranger... and a killer... A quiet southern town is terrorized by a blood thirsty psychopath. The kidnapping of a wealthy oil man and a series of needless, insane killings." Hell, that last part isn't even a sentence.

But I guess it doesn't matter how awful the box looks when the movie itself is so damn amazing. It exists in one of those wierd cinematic universes where filmmakers and most of the cast made this movie and nothing else. Its too bad, because I'd have watched anything Feazell, Collins, or King put their name on. Maybe one day we'll discover a lost horde of undiscovered Psycho From Texas sequels and prequels. We can hope, right?

- Micah