Junkyard Dog
Tags: suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
The movie opens with college girl Audra Buckman (Galadriel Stineman) on her way to a Halloween party in her yellow VW when it runs out of gas. She calls for help and we hear the radio dispatcher sending a tow truck her way.A tow truck pulls up behind Audra's car and JYD (Innis Casey) gets out. He tells her he doesn't have any gas, but he will tow her to the next service station where she can get some. After they leave we see another tow truck pull up. The driver is confused as the car he was looking for isn't there and calls the dispatcher to tell her that the caller must have gotten help from a good Samaritan and left.Audra, up in the tow trucks passenger seat, becomes suspicious when JYD passes a service station without stopping. She tries to call for help on her cell phone, but he snatches in from her, throws it out the window and hits her, knocking her out.He takes her to his wrecking yard: a large property sealed off with a high fence topped with barbed wire. She gets thrown down a shaft in the base of an old silo on the property and JYD uses some heavy equipment to dig a big hole and bury her car.The yard is guarded by a large, mean dog who is loyal only to JYD. We see JYD retreat to his office. Behind that is his living quarters, and behind that a room with a stainless steel butchering table. We see him chopping up some meat of undetermined origin. Some of it he feeds to his dog.Audra awakes to find herself lying on the floor of what appears to be a trailer. When she attempts to look out the windows she realizes that it is buried underground with the only apparent exit the shaft through the roof. The space has some kitchen chairs, a table bolted to the ground, and a mattress with box spring. There is also a toilet and shower, along with a shelf with a hotplate for cooking.Audra finally decides to use the shower. JYD has a secret camera wired above the showerhead so he can watch her. While she is busy, he lowers a ladder down the shaft. He takes her clothes and replaces them with skimpy daisy duke shorts and matching shirt.Their routine becomes clear. He tosses a bag of meat down to her, expecting her to cook it for their dinner. He only enters the chamber to eat the meal she has prepared and rape her. While they are eating dinner once, Audra complains that the meat smells funny and asks what it is. JYD replied that it is what is left of Miss September and that she "looked better than she tastes." Audra suddenly realizes that she is Miss October and that JYD plans to butcher her on the last day of the month.The police, including the local Sheriff (Brad Dourif) start searching for Audra. News reports state that this is one of a series of missing girls in the area. JYD leaves a newspaper with a story on the kidnapping for Audra to read.Meanwhile FBI agent Samantha Deatherage (Vivica A. Fox) enters her superiors office. Her boss Hellerman (John Kapelos) asks her if she is ready to go back to work. She was relieved of duty for a while to recover after she tracked the rapists of an 11 year-old girl down and killed them in a gun battle. Deatherage insists she is ready to start a new case. Hellerman gives her Audra Buckman's file.Deatherage starts the search for the girl by going to a local red-neck bar and flashing Audra's photo around to some uncooperative patrons. JYD spots her there and when she leaves he follows her back to her motel. After she goes into her room he tampers with her car.The next morning her car doesn't start and while she is looking under the hood, JYD pulls up in his tow truck to help. He tells her the problem is a bad coil and if he tows her car back to his wrecking yard he can replace it. Not wanting to wait for roadside assistance, she agrees.When JYD gets out of the truck for a moment, Deatherage takes the opportunity to examine something she noticed under the floor mat: It's an ear ring identical to the one Audra was wearing went she went missing. Deatherage, now knowing that JYD is the kidnapper, allows him to take her back to his wrecking yard.When they get there she pulls out her gun and demands he take her to the missing girl. He leads her into the silo where she is attacked by his dog. This allows him to knock her out, take her gun, and throw her down the shaft.We get a glimpse of JYDs warped mind that night when he has dinner in his living quarters. He sits at the table and argues with his dead parents who he has apparently killed some time in the past. He keeps their bodies frozen in an old refrigerated truck.Deatherage awakes and explains to Audra that she is an FBI agent here to rescue her. This seems of little comfort to Audra as Deatherage is also a prisoner herself. Even worse Audra realizes that Deatherage is meant to be her replacement and her month is almost up.The Sheriff arrives at JYD's wrecking yard looking for Deatherage who has failed to check in with her boss. He notes that the motel owner saw JYD take Deatherage and her car away. JYD replied that he fixed the coil on her car and then she left. The Sheriff takes a look around the wrecking yard, but finding nothing, leaves.JYD climbs down the ladder to rape Audra, but is attacked by Deatherage. He is able to get the upper hand and knocks her out. Thereafter he is wary of her and uses a pair of handcuffs to secure her to the table while he rapes Audra. While he is distracted by raping the her, Audra reaches into his back pocket and is able to steal the handcuff key from him.The next time he enters to rape Audra he tells her that this his final ride on her before butchers her. He doesn't realize that Deatherages handcuffs are open, and the women are able to attack him. He gets a stab wound from a sharp piece of glass in his thigh, but is able to retreat up the ladder. It is clear, however, that getting Audra out of the buried trailer and up to the butchering room is going to be a problem.The women prepare a defense by stripping the mattress down to the springs and wiring it to a wall socket. They also build makeshift spears out of wood from the box spring and tipped with broken shards of glass.JYD makes his own preparations. He dons a pair of night vision goggles and enters the trailer by a secret tunnel that comes up through a trap door in the floor. He is able to steal Audra away in the dark, through the tunnel leaving Deatherage alone in the trailer.JYD takes Audra up to the butchering room and straps her down to the table. She seems to have accepted her fate asking if it will hurt much. He replies that it will only hurt until he's drained the blood from her body, something he needs to do some so it won't spoil the meat.In the trailer Deatherage goes on the offensive by using the chairs and what is left of the box spring to climb up to the start of the shaft. She then wedges here body between the walls to climbs up and out of the silo. She has brought a makeshift spear with her to deal with the dog.JYD is just about to start on Audra, when he hears the dog yelp. Taking a gun he heads out into the yard to find the dog injured. Realizing that Deatherage has escaped he heads back to the butchering table and finds Audra gone. He and the dog then start hunting the women down.Meanwhile the Sheriff is out fishing. Looking at his hook, he finds it reminds him of a hook he saw in JYD quarters. It suddenly occurs to him that the high fence and barbed wire around the yard isn't meant to keep to people out, but to keep somebody inside. He hops in his car and heads to the wrecking yard.The women, unable to escape the yard, hide in the upturned scoop of a backhoe. When JYD passes below Deatherage jumps him. The gun gets knocked away and they fight. Finally Deatherage gets the gun as JYD runs away. She shoots at him hiding behind a wrecked car, which explodes. He emerges covered in flames and falls to the ground.The dog chases Deatherage and Audra to the front gate. He is about to catch them climbing the fence when the Sheriff arrives and shoots the dog.The case is closed and Deatherage and Audra go back to their normal lives.In a final scene we see a young women in a car on the side of the road. A tow truck pulls up behind her and the driver gets out. We can't see his face. She remarks to him, "Wow, that was fast." He tells her that he will tow her to his yard and fix her car. She agrees and the movie ends.

Review: "She looked a hell lot better than she tastes"..
What can you say, interesting enough premise (supposedly inspired by actual events) let down by flatfooted and tame execution.
Despite it's unpleasant details and dreary context --- a backwoods tow-truck driver is a serial killer who kidnaps unlucky girls at the end of every month holding them in a water tank in his wrecking yard where he constantly eats with them and then rapes them so this a constant pattern and when it comes to the end of the following month.
He kills them, chops them up and virtually eats them sharing the leftovers with his dog (which is the size of a horse not really but one character believes so).
So its time to look for another calendar pin-up for next month.
But the girl he kidnapped on Halloween has drawn the attention of an FBI agent.
So the race begins to find her, before she becomes his next meal.
This cheap, shot-on-video production felt like a clunky second-rate "Silence of the Lambs" crossed "Captivity" outing.
It tries too hard to be ominous and cruel, but felt daftly comedic in its attempts.
Kind of dearth of suspense and thrills lingering with lousy jump jolts and stupid plot contrivances.
Some things that occur just have you questioning how this killer could go this long without being caught and some of the investigation skills by the FBI agent (namely the line-dancing interruption) are laughable.
Performances are on the lank side, although genre favourite Brad Dourif gets a bit of screen time as a town sheriff who "eventually" figures out what's going on.
Innis Casey plays the deranged serial killer, as the camera likes to really focus on Casey's glassy expressions.
Galadriel Stineman gives the usual victim performance and Vivica A.
Fox as the headstrong FBI agent with (you guess) a scarred past ("Can you still pull the trigger?").
These are underwritten characters, which only show minor glimpses of their complexities and conflicted sides.
Too bad because it did seem meander about, on repetitive and tired actions/scenarios and especially when there was one fascinatingly dark, if minor sequence involving a dinner scene involving the killer and his dead parents.
Diverting, but an exaggeratedly slipshod serial killer thriller."This fairytale is not going to have a happy ending.".
Predictable to the core....
This particular psychological horror/thriller movie was a bit tame at best, and there are far better movies in the same genre available.The story here is about a serial killer named Jyd (played by Innis Casey) who abducts women, keep them alive, and once done with them he cuts them up, eat them and feed them to his dog.
Having her car run out of gas in the middle of a dark road, Audra (played by Galadriel Stineman) gets help from Jyd as he rolls up in his tow truck.
However, the saying "don't ride with strangers" turns out to be more than true in this case.
After several days of missing, Samantha Deatherage (played by Vivica A.
Fox) is put on the case to find the missing girl.Well, the story was interesting enough, but the movie quickly settled and nested in a monotone pace and never really got back out of that ditch.
Which ultimately made the movie end up as being slow and half-hearted.As for the acting, well not even Brad Dourif managed to pull this movie out of mediocrity.
The movie, however, was carried by the performances put on by both Innis Casey and Vivica A.
Fox. I just never bought into the performance put on Galadriel Stineman, as her portrayal of an abducted and molested victim never really seemed plausible.This is the type of movie that just oozes and reeks of predictability, and you know the outcome of the movie already from the start of the feature.
There weren't any surprises or twists along the way to throw the audience off the track.
No, the movie just trotted along in its slow, dull and comfortable pace.
The audience is always one step ahead of the movie because it is so predictable.If you enjoy psychological thrillers, then your money would be better invested elsewhere..
Innis Casey and Galadriel Stineman Steal the Show.
For the genre, this one is several notches above most.
I found the actor portraying JYD, Innis Casey,excellent, especially when he is underplaying.
In fact, he is so creepy in his understatement that I'm surprised he wasn't suspect #1.
Later in the film this cannibal chews the scenery more than he does his victims, but that may be more directorial than dietary.
The young lady playing his frequently sexually violated captive, Galadriel Stineman,is thoroughly convincing, and Ms Fox, as always, knows how to wear ankle high boots and be tough tender warm and compassionate all while wielding a hand gun.
You know the bad guy will get it sooner or later, and the women will emerge victorious, but there are thrills and scares far better than in 80% of similar shock fiestas.
If you want an entertaining kidnapper/cannibal movie (and who doesn't?) this may be your best bet..
It's not THAT bad..
I don't know if the movie has different versions, but the one I've seen deserves more credit than a 2.5.OK, it's not a good movie, the acting is really mediocre, the subjective camera is awful and the whole photograph of the film is poor.
But the plot is OK (kinda), it's all twisted up (as it's supposed to) and the only "too much" thing is the frozen parents at the table, since it is a "based on true events" and recurs us to some cases, even to recent ones such as Josef Fritzl's, on keeping his daughter locked in the basement and having sex with her.
On this plot, the serial killer kidnaps the victims, keep and rape them in a basement-like room at the bottom of a tall building with no doors or windows for a month, then kill, cook and eat them, also feeding the next victims with the meat.There is this really innocent lady who gets kidnapped on Halloween night by a really suspect tow driver.
Then an FBI agent is sent to look for her (let me add here, the FBI agent's boss is completely retarded.
he asks her if she can pull the trigger right after she killed two criminals and then send her to "another sh't assignment that could get ugly") and ends up in the same place as the girl.
One more note here: the serial killer's dog is the size of a regular dog, but he can attack and disarm an FBI agent and is referred by the Sheriff as "that is a damn horse".In the end, the town's Sheriff is the one to understand what's happening in the junkyard and goes back there just in time to shoot the dog before he attacks (again) the agent and the girl, who were able to escape the killer by shooting the gas tank of a car and exploding it and a lot others, also burning up the killer.
There's still an extra scene after the credits, where a lady's car breaks down, and the serial killer tow driver (who got burned and fell down just moments ago) appears to help her.
To end even worse, the ending dialogue is "my fiancé is waiting on me to eat, do you know how long this is gonna take?" "just about a month".So the film is really arguable on every single aspect, but it's a B movie with (I guess) no intention of being a Major.
It's a not-so-much low budget, so the bad acting and photography is understandable.
the script is OK.
it's not a good movie at all, but I've seen a lot worse..
An average serial killer movie.
This film isn't the greatest on the planet but it's not as bad as its IMDb rating indicates.
I rated it 5, and that's fair.Basically it's about a 30-something serial killer JYD who eats his victims.
Lord knows why he's never been caught because if the police were doing their job right they would have caught him ages ago.And it looks like he's murdered quite a few in the past.
His next would-be victim is a dark hair teenager driving on her way to a Halloween party.
Her car breaks down and JYD stops to help her tow to a garage.
Instead, he kidnaps her and keeps her holed up, beating and raping her daily.
Basically she's waiting for him to kill her.A female cop is on the girl's trail and...well, I won't spoil the rest of the film.
Suffice to say there's some genuine scares.
However there are a few stoopid things that happen.
Especially a fight scene toward the end.
I'm sorry I laughed at that!
Brad Dourif plays a slow Sheriff.
I guess he shot these scenes in his lunchtime.All in all, it's a flawed movie but still worth viewing..
Why, Vivica, Why?.
I'll admit that, thanks to Tivo, I skimmed over big chunks of this film.
There may have been subtle nuances of plot, theme, and characterization that I missed...but I doubt it.When I first saw Ms. Fox in INDEPENDENCE DAY I thought she was poised to be a star, and she did solid work in KILL BILL and SET IT OFF.
Now she's pushing fifty, though, and women other than Meryl Streep just aren't allowed to do that.Leading men well into their sixties and even seventies routinely make big budget films with leading ladies younger than their grandchildren.There's an old joke that there are three stages to an actress's career:-- Hot mama.-- District Attorney.-- DRIVING MISS DAISY.Sadly, that's more truth than poetry.So Ms. Fox is doing crap like this and, worse yet, infomercials.This isn't really a bad movie.
The other actors are competent, and it's good to see Brad Dourif play a sympathetic character.But the writing and direction bungle too many opportunities.MAJOR SPOILERS AHEADA lot of the film's climax hinges on the (totally false) presumption that one shot from a sympathetic character's gun can blow up a vehicle and send flames billowing into the night sky.But the crisis is resolved with no resolution.
There's no satisfaction after all that's gone before in seeing vice avenged and virtue rewarded.Worse yet, there's a scene after the credits that completely reverses every plot development we've seen, and that probably 95% of the people watching the film will never see.Kim Bass is nowhere near untalented: witness his Emmy nomination for his writing on the innovative In Living Color.
But this is a zero budget film.
People will watch the closing credits of IRON MAN because they have a lot invested in the story and know that there will be additional footage that will set up the next film.Admittedly, it was good to see Ms. Fox playing a lead role.
I only wish it had been in a project worthy of her talent.