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Hitcher In The Dark |
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Mark is the alcoholic, psychotic son of a wealthy
businessman. He is travelling across country
with a trailer picking up female hitchhiker,
who he kills, strips and photographs before
feeding them to a swamp crocodile. Along comes
a young blonde Daniela who just left her cheating
boyfriend and asks Mark for a ride. Boy, does
she wish she'd stayed with her boyfriend...?
This is so sad. When a totally inept director,
like Umberto Lenzi, decides he wants to do
something psychological and almost throws every
horror-fan-attracting element out for some
heavy-handed emotional shocks. This works in a
film like, let's say "Henry: Portrait of a
Serial Killer" cause that director knows what
he's doing and use a different style than the
usual look of a commercial teen-horror flick.
Here, it's just cheesy.
The script lacks any original touches or
surprising plot twists. The abandoning-mother,
absent-father explanation for the killer has
been done millions of times before and when
Lenzi tries for the old up-and-down relationship
between hostage-and-villain there's not a moment
close to believable as our victim Daniela
suddenly becomes friendly to a guy who has tied
down her down, slapped her around and almost
raped her.
Joe Balogh and Josie Bisset (from "Melrose
Place" fame) try their best and have their
decent moments together but the dialogue and
situations they have to deal with are laughable
and repetitive that you soon end up wishing
someone will end this disaster quickly. For the
worse, it becomes Daniela's boyfriend - played
by amazingly stiff and talent-free Jason
Sauicier - who is setup as the film's hero.
Luckily his screen time is limited but he has
some so-bad-it's-hilarious scenes.
What also overshadows the film's poor attempt
at psychological horror is its corny exploitation
of gratuitous female nudity. Already after
less than five minutes a female victim's breast
are exploited and in a stupid plot twists
involving a thief and Daniela's freestyle, we
enter a drawn out wet T-shirt contest! And poor
Josie Bissett (who even has to do full frontal
duty in bizarre, awkward situations) spends
more screen time undressed than with clothes on.
And with these three characters aside, there's
not so much more to work with but still the
film runs more than 90 minutes - for a story
that could've been over in like 20! But fear
not getting tired of this trio as director
Lenzi has a passion for pointless supporting
characters and extras - of the talent-free kind,
of course. The film's highlight is long,
hilariously bad and pointless scene where
Bissett dances to some crappy 80s dance tune in
a trailer park while her boyfriend and other
dimwits stands around, clapping their hands like
it's some damn ritual ceremony. It has to be
seen to be believed.
A slashed throat, a ridiculously fake stab in
the shoulder with a fork (!), carving in the
chest and some more dull knife job.
The worthless 80s dance tune used for the
trailer-park dance sequence is used several
times (as radio music). The routine suspense
score ranges from OK to really bad.
Totally inept director tries to make a
psychological horror thriller lacking any
interesting or original plot twist. Joe Balogh
and Josie Bisset try hard but their work is
sunk by unbelievable situations and dialogue.
Corny, gratuitous nudity and a passion for
talent-free supporting characters (including
Jason Saucier as the hero boyfriend) sink
this disaster to the bottom of the barrel.
Review By: Slicer-Dicer
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