Psycho Pike (1992)

 

Director: Chris Poschun

Screenplay: Chris Poschun

Cast: Douglas Kidd as Reg; Wayne McNamara as Tim; Sarah Campbell as Dara; Dawn Kelly as Rhonda; Cliff Makinson as Willy T; Red Fisher as Himself; Michael K. Panton as Sheriff of Shippagew; John Alexis as Uncle Slats

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

You want a picture of my shithouse?

Just when you thought it was safe to go fishing, there is a psycho pike in the water. Credit to director-writer Chris Poschun's sole film however, mostly a melodrama about environmental pollution conspiracy, former lovers stuck together on vacation and a rubber pike monster attacking people occasionally, this is the kind of film I can get behind, falling onto plot tropes but with punches of charisma.

Certainly of the nineties, as its now alternative rock than hair metal on the soundtrack, over images of cows baffled as to why they are being filmed, the film takes its time to get more personality, set up as students out on vacation in the countryside, including Rhonda (Dawn Kelly), concerned about her student work, and the uncomfortable relationship she has with one of her male friends who, dating the other people on the vacation, used to be in a relationship themselves but decided to stay friends. There is unintentional humour - do pikes eat ducks as the male lead suggests - but where Psycho Pike gets interesting is when its eccentricities are deliberate and the plot strands are bolstered by the characters. Melodrama is apt, with our leads' conflicted relationship, and the additional issue that his friend/her boyfriend is part of his uncle's local business behind the pollution in the region's water, causing the psycho pike and killing fish, which they will try to cover up. It is hard to make a horror film where your cast (including extras) spend their time sat down fishin', but the resulting movie has a deadpan sense of humour to its advantage.

There are the line of women sat by the one telephone booth in the area after using it for multiple scenes, to two Hong Kong businessmen - one practicing Tai Chi at one point on a pier whilst the other, still in suit, reflects the sun on his head and neck for a suntan - which leads to a martial arts fight between man and fish. Then there is the best character, Willy the one eyed gas station attendant (Cliff Makinson) who, alongside the unexpected and progressive touch for a nineties film of being romantically involved with another man, is played with a wit even when revealing he lost the eye through a pike in his introduction, fitting the tone. Even a broad joke, like the Austrian photographer who takes photos of bathrooms around the world, stays the right side of goofy, that joke funnier as, reflecting on how people keep reading material in the John and wanting to create a coffee table book on Johns themselves, I would not be surprised if it exists.

An obscure film, it is also not micro-budget with some production value behind it, even able to blow up an entire building for a set piece when the evil corporation will kill to hide their pollution track record. Psycho Pike is still a silly film, but as it took its time, it caught me off-guard by its charm. Plus this does live up to actors being threatened, with gore effects, by a rubber pike monster, so everyone wins by watching this.