Highway zur Hölle

Hitch Hike to Hell certainly can't be considered a 'great' slice of seventies exploitation, and while this type of film has been a lot better; there are far worse examples to choose from also. The film's influences are wide and largely obvious, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and, of course, Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left standing out the most. It's also obvious that the film didn't have the greatest scriptwriter on board, as while the tacky dialogue can easily be ignored, the numerous coincidences and obvious plot devices stick out too much, and lowered my enjoyment of the film. For example, just how many runaway girls can one man run across? Anyway, the plot focuses on Howard Martin, a weird shy man that drives a laundry truck. Beneath his harmless exterior, the man is a raving lunatic who is obsessed with his mother and can't stand to hear that a young girl is running away from hers. This leads him to begin killing the runaways by strangulation, but it's not long before the police catch on and begin hunting for the mysterious stranger murdering women on the highway.

Hitch-hiking is a common theme within horror cinema, and has lead to some of the greatest genre movies of all time. The main problem with this movie, however, is that it gets a bit monotonous after a while. Basically, the central psycho picks up a woman, she tells him that she's run away from home - and then he kills her. It's clear that the film was shot on a low budget, and indeed; it looks very, very cheap. But despite that, director Irvin Berwick manages to create a great country atmosphere, which is built up by the spacious locations and a relaxed soundtrack. There's not a great deal of violence in the film, and the style of the movie is such that we never really get the impression that the lead character is a bad man. He commits acts of violence, and then in the next scene everything seems OK. It's a rather odd tone for a movie like this, but the mean spirit comes in at the end with a climax that really is quite shocking, as well as being unexpected given what we've seen of the character earlier. Overall, I can't give this film a high recommendation as it really isn't all that good; but in spite of that, it's worth seeing for the exploitation fan.

A warped and demented mother's boy, Howard (Robert Gribbin) makes a habit of raping & killing various women hitchhikers. When the bodies mount up it's up to Captian Shaw of the Crescent P.D. (played by Russell Johnson, better known as the Proffesor from Gilligan's Island) to try to catch this deviant. The film is a tad on the tedious side (Howard picks up hitchhiker, rapes, kills, back to momma's for dinner, has flask backs to the murders, rinse & repeat) Of course interspersed with the Professor hamming it up.Their IS however one scene that deviates from the standard path that the movie sets up, it has a stereotypical flamboyant gay guy (aptly listed in the credits as 'gay boy') whom Howard picks up and is obviously used for misplaced comedic effect. Oh and a pregnancy sub-plot that comes out of nowhere and feels like it should be in a different movie completely, in this one it just felt like painful melodramatic filler. Given the subject matter and the fact that this is a low-budget exploitation movie, it's pretty tame going. For all it's faults (and there are a great many of them) the film isn't as bad as it is made out to be and i've seen worse. Russell Johnson himself makes the film watchable. If you lack a pretty high tolerance for these kind of low-budget films though I'd recommend that you steer clear.

My Grade: C-

Something Weird DVD Extras: 3 shorts: "the Hitch-Hiker", "Dangerous Strangers" & "the Cautious Twins"; A 27 minute tour of Box office International with Harry Novak circa 1992; Gallery of exploitation art with accompanying soundtrack (5 minutes, 19 seconds); Theatrical trailer; and 2 trailers for the other film on the DVD "Kidnapped Coeds" (one under it's alternative title of "Kidnapped Lover")

Eye Candy: Jacqueline Poseley gets topless; Jane Ratliff shows brief nipple

A clean-cut Mama's Boy (Robert Gribbin) works as a delivery man for a dry cleaner, and has a tendency to pick up young people hitch hiking along his daily route on the highway. When he finds out that they're running away from home and they despise their mothers, he twitches and turns into a maniac who goes berserk and slaughters them. This actually plays unintentionally funny in many places, and it's hilarious watching gray-haired Russell Johnson (the professor from "Gilligan's Island") portraying a frazzled police captain who has to deliver horrible dialogue with a concerned face. But there are also some gruesome moments too. I watched this with a couple of friends and while it's certainly not a good movie, my friends and I had a good time with it, MST3K-style. There's also a delightfully silly redneck theme song for the credits... "therrrrre's no way you can teellllll when you Heeetch Hiiike to Heelllll". If you get a chance to see the narrated trailer, it's also a riot ("He doesn't drink anything stronger than root beer!"). **1/2 out of ****

Surprisingly , this film was pretty good. The acting was fine and the facial expressions of the lead character- Howard , was outstanding. The story of a social misfit at around 30 yrs. old, still tugging to Moms apron strings. A sister that ran away from home , causes torment to Howard , trying to protect his mother in perhaps the most sinister ways, involving Crescent City Ca. runaways. There were some fine, creative twists in this film , that entertained from start to finish. There was one particular scene with a not so ordinary runaway, that had me laughing hysterically. I do not want to give away the scene; I will keep quiet. The film , though not gory was still very watchable. There are some loose ends about Howards family that took away from the film, but it took away not much. The movie did allow for the expansion of some of the other character bios , but did not overdo it.The scenes where folks were supposed to have violence inflicted, were not done well;Reminding me somewhat of the 'Batman' show of the mid 60's. I think the film wanted those scenes to be a little spoofy on purpose. Russell Johnson of Gilligan fame was the only actor of note. The rest of the cast was more than acceptable . This film passes with high marks, in my opinion.

Anyone out there looking for some honest-to-God quality B-horror that not only holds your attention but is just inept enough to be funny? Well, look no further, because Something Weird Video and Harry Novak have brought us yet another unknown, Drive-in obscurity from the 70's. About a mama's boy named Howard, who, of course, lives with his clingy, over-protective mother. Mama hasn't always been this bad, you understand, but since Howard's sister ran away (moved out) , Howie is all she has, so it's understandable why she would treat a 20-something year old man like a total infant. Howard has mama, he has Root Beer, he has his hobbie, hell, he even has a job, one would assume Howard is doing OK, considering he's a man-child and all. Unfortunately, Howard has so much repressed rage against his sister for abandoning the family, that every time he picks up a hitchhiker, he ends up blacking out, and killing them. Unfortunately, Howard likes to pick up hitchhikers every single day, probably more than once. What I find odd is that every single time, the hitchhiker turns out to be a girl who's running away from home, which would kinda clear up as to why Howard always kills them, although, it's still odd.

One of the most entertaining and all-around best movies Something Weird Video has to offer. Some may think that that's not saying much, but it totally is, that is, if you dig vintage exploitation, if not, then you're definitely wasting your time here. Hitch-Hike To Hell isn't necessarily a frightening horror movie, but rather a quality movie with a good story that happens to be horror, hence the killing, and if you can't get enough grainy, unintentionally funny 70's B-charm, then Hitch-hike To Hell should make you extremely happy. If the antics of Howard the mama's boy seriously doesn't do it for you, then I would recommend checking out the other half of the double-feature, Kidnapped Coed, just to see how inept B-horror can really be, although, I kinda liked that one too, God help me. Unless we're talking about a Herschell Gordon Lewis gore-epic, or something else awesome like The Psychedelic Priest, then I can't think of anything more worthwhile from Something Weird Video than Hitch-Hike To Hell. Check it out. 9/10