Ketrivie
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Catherina
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Phillida
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Michael_Elliott
Hitcher in the Dark (1989) * 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly silly psychological thriller from the same man who brought us Eaten Alive, Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City and countless giallos. This time out he tells the story of a young man (Joe Balogh) who is so in love with his mother that he drives around in his RV kidnapping women who look like her so that he can sexually assault them, kill them and then feed them to alligators. All of this changes when he kidnaps one girl (Josie Bissett) who he plans on settling down with, although she doesn't share the same feelings. This Italian/American production is a cross between Bill Lustig's Maniac and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Vertigo but needless to say it doesn't come close to any of those films. This movie is without question one of the dumbest and most boring thrillers I've ever seen and trust me when I say I've seen a lot. The biggest problem is Lenzi's direction, which is just downright horrible as he never brings any life to the film nor does he ever dig into this killer's mind even though that's what he's trying to do. There's no doubt Lenzi could create a good film earlier in his career but everything I've seen from after 1983 is pure junk and this film is included. There's some female nudity along the way but this too grows very tiresome. The only thing that keeps this sucker from getting a BOMB rating is the incredibly horrid dialogue, which Ed Wood would probably laugh at. The dialogue in this film is so bad that I couldn't help but laugh at loud during several scenes because it really seems like a two-year-old wrote it. Be sure to pay close attention to one scene where the girl's boyfriend, searching for her, sneaks into a RV, which belongs to a black man. This scene must be Lenzi paying tribute to the blaxploitation pictures of the 70s because of how bad and out of touch with reality it is.
Woodyanders
Misogynistic psycho wackjob Mark (a creepily manic and intense performance by handsome beefcake hunk Joe Balogh) wears mirror shades, suffers from a severe mommy complex, drives a fancy expensive Winnebago, and has a nasty penchant for picking up stray foxy young female hitchhikers whom he likes to rape, debase and brutally murder. Mark chooses the feisty Daniela (gorgeous blonde hottie Josie Bissett, who went on to slightly more respectable work as a regular on the trashy nighttime soap opera "Melrose Place") as his next victim and abducts her. Daniela's obsessive boyfriend Kevin (woodenly played by Jason Saucier) gives chase.Limply directed by spaghetti splatter specialist Umberto ("Nightmare City") Lenzi (who also wrote the flat, clichéd, talky cookie cutter script), with slack pacing, nil suspense, mostly mild and goreless violence, atrocious acting, and a humdrum plot which offers no fresh twists or novel surprises, this strictly from hunger Eurodreck rip-off of "The Hitcher" qualifies as a real stinker. However, both Jerry Phillip's polished cinematography and Carlo Maria Cordio's throbbing rock score are up to par, while the copious gratuitous nudity rates as the single most watchable and enjoyable thing in this whole godforsaken turkey (said nudity includes several scenes of Bissett in the buff and an especially tasty wet t-shirt contest). And hardcore Bissett bashers such as yours truly should get a kick out of the extensive degradation Josie suffers throughout the flick: she's drugged, gagged and handcuffed by our star loony, has her hair cut short and dyed black, gets photographed by nutso while nude and unconscious, and is even forced to watch the freak carve the word "pig" in Kevin's chest. Taking that last nugget into consideration, I guess this picture ain't so bad after all.
lazarillo
This movie has some things going for it. It features some really beautiful scenery of the American South. It features some really beautiful scenery of a young, lovely Josie Bisset. And it is not quite Umberto Lenzi's worst movie ever. It has a lot of problems though. First, the dialogue is terrible. (Maybe these ridiculous conversations would sound better if they were badly dubbed and delivered with Italian accents). Second, the acting is wretched. The aforementioned Bisset is even worse than she was on "Melrose Place". The only time her acting is halfway tolerable is the scene where she is being photographed naked and sexually assaulted, and that is only because she has been mercifully drugged unconscious. The killer is played by a Christopher Atkins look-alike who is not only just as bad as Bisset but woefully miscast to boot. A five-foot-tall, effeminate pretty boy wearing Vaurnet sun-glasses and driving around in a RV camper is just NOT scary. The amazing thing though is director Umberto Lenzi who started out as a great director with classic Italian giallo like "Paranoia" in the late 60's, but seemed to get worse with each film. His infamous cannibal and zombie movies in the early 80's were awful but at least they elicited some reaction. This movie and its Florida-lensed follow-up "Nightmare Beach" don't even do that. At the rate he was going here, if Lenzi's still working at all he's probably making amateur porn videos and forgetting to take off the lens cap. I can certainly understand why Lenzi started using a cinematic pseudonym about this time, but why did he choose the name "Humbert Humphrey" recalling classic literature's most infamous pedophile?(Would that make Josie Bisset "Lolita")? What a strange, strange guy.
Dr. Gore
*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*A psycho and his Winnebago. So a nut travels up and down the Virginia Beach coastline looking for hitchhikers. Seems lonely boy has a fixation on his mother. Don't they all? He wants to mold the hitchhikers into his hot, saintly mother's image. Lurid mind games follow.This movie could have been good. The problem is the acting. Since most of the movie is spent having the psycho converse with his prey, it is imperative that the psycho be believable and, if at all possible, scary. He is none of that. In fact, he's awful. One of the worst acting performances ever. Since the camera is on him through most of the flick, he starts to wear you down with his lazy psycho routine. The hitchhiker he picks up, (Josie Bissett), was good. All of the other actors stunk. The music was also horrible. Late 80's synthesizer cheese.On the plus side, the movie did have an authentic, grimy feel to it. The filmmakers knew the right deranged words to put in the psycho's mouth. He just couldn't deliver them convincingly. There are some good exploitation scenes in his camper. Here's the psycho party mix: A girl, chloroform and an instant camera. It makes for a happy psycho. I did enjoy the completely unnecessary wet T-shirt contest as well."Hitcher in the Dark" may just be sordid enough to warrant a viewing. I can't say that I loved every second of it but it does have its seedy moments.
