Hitcher in the Dark (1989).
“You know, you’re really cute when you scream.”
Directed by Umberto Lenzi (as Humphrey Humbert)
Written by Olga Pehar
Starring Joe Balogh, Josie Bissett, Jason Saucier, a Winnebago, and some sexy saxophone riffs
The Stage.
An unimposing psychopath with horrid listening skills and worse social skills picks up hot blonde hitchhikers in his daddy’s Winnebago, drugs them, dresses them up like his dead mom, tries to bang them, and then ultimately kills them. When he picks up Daniela, he doesn’t expect that her boyfriend, Kevin, would go on a one man mission to find her. Actually, I didn’t expect that either, since he didn’t seem to want her very much before she got kidnapped.
The Review.
First things first, this title makes zero sense seeing as we only see him pick up two hitchhikers and they’re both in broad daylight. What follows is less like a horror film and more of a psychological drama between the psychotic Mark Glazer and Daniela. It feels less like The Hitcher and more like a very bad version of Psycho.
Daniela is played by Josie Bissett from Melrose Place fame, a woman whose hobbies include dancing at the park and repeatedly bungling escape attempts. The amount of times she tries to escape and then subsequently fails in this film is comical. Her boyfriend Kevin begins a thorough search for campers in America’s party capital…Norfolk, Virginia based on a lead from a dirt bike doo rag who was on acid when he saw her get into it. Oh, and the only reason she was hitchhiking to begin with is because Kevin was trying to bang one of her friends and Daniela angrily broke up with him. I guess sometime that day, he realized that he had lost someone really special, because he doggedly pursuits her, only stopping to stare at some tits when he takes a quick break to check out a wet t-shirt contest at the beach.
Nothing is going to slow Kevin down except tits.
Aside from the hilariously bad dialogue and a few effective moments (including one in which Daniela tries to get someone’s attention outside by knocking a Vodka bottle off of a table as it smashes at the exact moment someone else smashes a window), the film is a slog. It’s a collection of very stupid, “Wow, that was a close one!” moments of civilian and police ineptitude that drifts towards an ending with a final shot that is among the worst filmed final moments I’ve ever seen. I can only imagine the director’s choice in filming the final shot that way. “You know what people who watch movies really want? Pictures!”
Make sure to stay long enough for the moronically out of touch scene in which Kevin decides to break into a camper owned by an African American man and their totally believable fight.
The End.
This movie was a tough one to stomach. It’s a mean-spirited, repetitive slow burn until it finally peters out with a silly-ass twist that you’ll see coming a mile away. Vinegar Syndrome advertised this one as an '“ultra violent mix of suspense thriller and action”. Unfortunately, the disc they sent me seemed to be missing most of the violence and all of the action.
The film looks nice, restored from the 35mm negative, and includes a commentary track with film historians and authors Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger as well as an archival video interview with the director Umberto Lenzi.
