Wheeler (John King III), a psychopath with a mother complex, comes into
town to meet up with Slick (Tommy Lamey) to discuss their latest
assignment: To kidnap William Phillips (Herschel Mays), a rich bastard
Wheeler incidently has made friends with just recently, and hold him for
ransom. The kidnapping goes as well as can, but then Wheeler leaves Slick
with Phillips to tour town for a bit - doing so, he pays a visit to
Phillips' daughter (Candy Dee), kills her best friend (Janel King) -
incidently the Sheriff's (Jack Collins) daughter -, picks a fight in a
bikers' bar, and ultimately strips a barmaid (Linnea Quigley) naked in
another bar and has her have sex with an unconscious man. Then he decides
it's time to leave town ... Meanwhile, Slick has proven himself to be
not the most efficient of kidnappers, as he somehow lets his prisoner
escape, and proves to be too klutzy to recapture him, even if he has the
physical advantage over the man, who's already a retiree. Ultimately,
Phillips kills him with a harpune, then returns to town where the employer
of Wheeler and Slick is found out before too long, Steven (Reed Johnson)
Phillips' daughter's no good fiancé. Steven is arrested, but manages to
escape - but ultimately, he is shot dead by the pursuing cop ... Wheeler
seems to have evaded arrest scot-free and made it out of town, but then he
has a flat tyre, and rather by chance, the first car that stops for
assistance is the Sheriff's - and the Sheriff just happens to know what he
has done to his daughter and is armed ... sure, it's a crime to shoot this
guy who's technically no more than a suspect, but from a human point of
view, can you blame the Sheriff? The first thing about Psycho
from Texas one can't fail to notice is that it's rather choppily
edited - but there's a reason for this. The film, in a different edit, was
first released in 1975 as Wheeler, and (at least allegedly) played
at least a few theatres - apparently with modest success, as in 1978,
filmmaker Jim Feazell returned to his film, shot a few additional scenes
(including the infamous naked barmaid scene that turned out to be future
scream queen Linnea Quigley's movie debut) and planned to release it as
either The Hurting or The Mama's Boy - but the release never
happened. In 1980 or so, Feazell sold the rights to his film, which was
re-edited to its current form (and at least released on home video), to
not entirely satisfactory results. It's hard to tell though how much of
the quality (or lack thereof) can be blamed on the 1980-edit, as copies of
the previous cuts seem to no longer exist. It has to be noted though that
any film is more than just the result of its edit, and on all other
aspects of filmmaking, Psycho from Texas doesn't do too great
either: It's not really well-written, the dialogue is awful most of the
time, the action scenes are sloppily directed and sometimes all of a
sudden seem to have a slapstick side to them when it's the least
appropriate. And most of the cast is at best average, either. At least
John King III is properly creepy, which makes him a good psycho, but when
he befriends his future victim at the beginning of the film, that seems a
bit out of place ... Oh well, the film curiously still has a bit of
charm as a 1970's grindhouse sleaze flick (as films like this one often do
despite or even because of their shortcomings), but it certainly is a less
than brilliant (or even good) movie.
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