Hitch Hike to Hell
Howard is mild-mannered and slightly simple-minded, with a habit of picking up teenage hitchhikers while driving his delivery routes. Sometimes the girls admit to being runaways, and if they claim to hate their mothers it drives Howard into a violent frenzy; his sister ran away from home years ago and was never heard from again, causing his desperate, addled mother to tighten her hold on him. Howard never remembers raping his victims or strangling them with wire coat hangers, though his boss does notice missed deliveries and late arrivals.
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- Cast:
- Russell Johnson , John Harmon
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Reviews
I love this movie so much
Good concept, poorly executed.
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
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.
I absolutely love this delectably cheap'n'cheesy late 60's exploitation trash psycho howler. Hopelessly geeky bespectacled dweeb Howard (a hilariously histrionic performance by Robert Gribbin, who overemotes to the point where you swear he's going to give himself a nosebleed) drives a delivery van for the local laundromat service. Howard has gone murderously around the bend ever since his beloved sister ran away from home six years ago. While making his daily rounds Howard picks up stray runaway teenage lady hitch-hikers and brutally butchers them. Among Howard's victims are a token gay guy, a little girl whose bloodied corpse Howard leaves in a dumpster, and one luckless lass Howard strangles in the back of his van with a wire coat hanger (I'm sure Joan Crawford would have approved of this last one). Earnest, but ineffectual police captain Shaw (well essayed by Russell Johnson; the Professor on "Gilligan's Island"!) tries to catch Howard, but thanks to indifferent and negligent parents finds this to be a most difficult task to accomplish (nice pointed social commentary here). Not released for ten years until it was picked up by legendary soft-core flick king Harry Novak's Box Office International Pictures for theatrical distribution in the 70's, sporting suitably shoddy production values, largely atrocious acting (the scenes where Howard either experiences painful seizures or erupts into a wildly raving psychotic frenzy while killing folks are especially sidesplitting), and a gloriously ghastly country-and-western theme song ("Danger on the road/Danger on the road/There's no way you can tell/When you hitch-hike to hell/Danger on the road tonight"), this grubby grindhouse gem is well worth picking up if you're a fan of deliciously down'n'dirty drive-in dreck.
*May Contain Spoilers*Nerdy Howard lives with his mother, drinks A&W Root Beer (blatant product placement here!), assembles model autos, drives a laundry van for a living--and rapes and kills hitch-hiking runaways he picks up along his route. Seems his sister was a runaway who broke Mommy's heart when she took off, which has turned Howard into a maniac. (Come to think of it, using model glue in a closed room probably didn't do his brain any good, either.) Howard slaps his victims around (with his hands visibly some distance from his victims' faces) and strangles them; the chokings, as in most movies, take about twenty seconds. The slayings are shown but the rapes aren't, making for an uncomfortable suggestion of necrophilia. Most of his victims are female but another of them is the sort of swishy, light-in-the-loafers man you won't see in movies today. Russell Johnson, dear to GILLIGAN'S ISLAND'S two dozen fans, appears as a police captain who tries to steer hitch-hikers out of harm's way and makes reference to The Zodiac Killer. The ending is another imitation of PSYCHO. Nancy Adams sings the not-too-bad theme song and the background score also turned up in Cronenberg's RABID. The director's son Wayne served as sound man and "harmonicist" on the theme. The film overall is no masterpiece but it's above average for a Harry Novak release and was made more professionally than I'd been led to expect. Now available on DVD along with KIDNAPPED (sic) CO-ED and a number of incredible short features, including a grand tour of Novak's headquarters.
Johnson (Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) plays a cop in this low-budget film. Gribbins stars as a mama's boy laundry driver who picks up Hitchhikers and kill them. The victims are runaways and it triggers him to see them because his sister ran away from home many years ago. Some nudity and violence will be cut for TV, and the film I hear wasn't release till 1970. Gribbin played a opposite role in another drive-in classic TRIP WITH A TEACHER. Johnson actually does a fantastic performance and I am suprised he didn't do more "B" film back then. Not recommended.