Hitch Hike to Hell



The operative word in Hitch Hike to Hell (1977) is sleazy. Not that is anything very sleazy going on in the film, but you can imagine that the only audience for this film would be in the sleaziest grind houses Time Square could hold.

The plot of Hitch Hike to Hell goes like this:

Howard, a geeky guy who drives a delivery van for a dry cleaners, picks up a beautiful young female hitchhiker. They chat amiably for a while, until the girl says something derogatory about her mother. This causes Howard to wig out, and he rapes the woman and strangles her to death with a wire hanger. He dumps the body on the outskirts of town.

Back at work Howard's boss yells at him for being late with some of his deliveries.

Howard goes home to his doting mother and builds models, interrupted only by episodes where he flashes back to the murders he has committed.

Repeat this about five times and you have Hitch Hike to Hell. There is a little variety in victims, including a flamboyantly gay man and a ten year old girl, but tedium sets in early. There are police in the film, of course, headed by Russell Johnson of Gilligan's Island fame. But they don't really investigate the murders, they just talk about it and make lots of disapproving statements about how the world is falling apart.

The presentation of this material is so without style or drama that the only reason anyone would see it is for the brief flashes of breasts during the first two murders. Even that audience probably would have left before they'd find out that all the actresses willing to take their shirts off had already shown up.

Posted: Tue - November 25, 2003 at      

©