Hitchhike to Hell

            I used to love hitchhiking. I remember defiantly announcing to my father I wasn’t going to get a driver’s license and he angrily asked, “How the hell are you going to get around?” “I’ll hitchhike,” I sarcastically replied. And that’s just what I did. But hitchhiking in the 60s was a whole different ball game. People actually picked you up. I remember standing with my thumb out for hours on some deserted highway and, I’ll tell you, the sight of a stupid paisley-painted VW bus in the distance cheered me up because inevitably some hippies would pick you up. I thought nothing of hitching all the way from the tip of Cape Cod to NYC just to see David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars concert at Radio City Music Hall. But, then, as the 70s drew to a close, things began to get really dicey. And a horror-filled ride with a trucker who pulled a gun on me ended my hitchhiking days forever.

            Maybe that’s why I relate to the more sinister scenes of hitchhiking in movies rather than Claudette Colbert lifting her skirt to get a ride in It Happened One Night. There are way too many ill-fated road adventures to chronicle, but here are a few of my favorites.

            Detour (1945) A 65-minute marvel directed by Edgar G. Ulmer starring Tom Neal as a hapless musician who decides to surprise his fiancé by hitchhiking across country to be with her. Bad idea. Fate brings him into contact with one of the nastiest characters in film noir history, played by the aptly named Ann Savage, and his life is permanently altered. Not for the better. Savage’s performance is fearless and frightening.

            The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror masterpiece is a film that only gets more brilliant through the years. Sure, it’s terrifying. But, also, a lacerating, sardonic portrait of American. When the van of unfortunate travelers pick up a strange hitchhiker with a birthmark down half his face (Edwin Neal) he immediately creeps them all out by lovingly pulling out Polaroids taken at a local slaughterhouse then dementedly slashing wheelchair-bound Franklin (Paul A. Partain) with a straight razor. 

            Pink Flamingos (1972) It doesn’t get much worse for a female than to get picked up in a car by Connie & Raymond Marble (Mink Stole & David Lochary) in John Waters’ shock comedy. You get knocked out with a rag full of ether, then chained in a cellar and impregnated by their “rather fertile servant” (Channing Wilroy) only to have your baby sold to a lesbian couple. Waters previously included a nude man hitchhiking in Mondo Trasho (1969) and got busted for it.

            The Hitch-Hiker (1953) Director Ida Lupino tensely tells the tale of two buddies (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy), on their way to Mexico for a fishing trip, who unwisely stop to help a man on the side of the road. He turns out to be a crazed killer (Perry Mason’s- William Talman) who takes them hostage.

            Freeway (1996) This sardonic take of the Little Red Riding Hood story stars a riotously funny Reese Witherspoon as Vanessa Lutz, hitchhiking to grandma’s house only to be picked up by seemingly harmless Bob Wolverton (brilliant Kiefer Sutherland), who is secretly the “I-5 killer.” But messing with Vanessa proves disastrous for the big bad Wolverton. I hesitate to say more to ruin the fun of this hilarious, darkly comic thriller directed by Matthew Bright.

            Hitch Hike to Hell (1977) A mom-obsessed laundry truck driver (Robert Gribbin) is actually a psycho-killer who picks up pretty female hitchhikers and murders them. Loosely based on real-life serial killer Ed Kemper, this sleaze wonder was directed by Irvin Berwick (The Monster of Piedras Blancas). The “Professor” from Gilligan’s Island– Russell Johnson– plays the police captain determined to catch the killer. Gribbin is memorably maniacal as the nerdy nutcase.

            The Hitcher (1986) Rutger Hauer is absolutely chilling as a psychopathic hitchhiker, who stalks a motorist (C. Thomas Howell) in this harrowing thriller directed by Robert Harmon with an excellent screenplay by Eric Red. When asked what the maniac wants, he fiendishly replies, “I want you to stop me.” A suspense classic. 

            The Car (1977). Unintentionally hilarious 1977 film directed by Elliot Silverstein about a demonic, driverless Lincoln Continental in New Mexico, that runs down innocent hitchhikers and then mockingly honks the horn as it drives away. James Brolin plays the harried sheriff, and concerned dad, who utters the immortal line: “Lock the kids in their room! The car is in the garage!” 

            Road Games (1981) A taut 1981 Australian thriller, expertly directed by Richard Franklin, about a trucker (Stacy Keach) who begins to suspect a van he has suspiciously seen along the way might be the vehicle of a serial killer murdering hitchhikers. Jamie Lee Curtis plays a free-spirited thumb-tripper whose presence ups the stakes of this twisty cat and mouse suspense tale. 

            Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker (1979) A made-for-TV movie that supposedly was a “cautionary tale” but really an excuse to sugar-coat a sleazy story about a naïve teenage girl (Charlene Tilton), who, while hitchhiking, unwisely gets into the car of the same predator that sexually assaulted her friends. The moral of this tale- don’t ride with strangers, stupid.

            Jackson County Jail (1976) Lovely Yvette Mimieux plays a motorist that foolishly picks up a hippie hitchhiker (Robert Carradine) and his pregnant girlfriend (Nancy Lee Noble) who rob her at gunpoint, steal her car and strand her in a redneck Southern town where she is arrested for vagrancy and raped by her jailer. A frighteningly handsome Tommy Lee Jones plays a fellow prisoner who helps her escape and goes on the run with her in this gritty, remarkably intense drama directed by Michael Miller.

            Hitcher in the Dark (1989) Sublimely sleazy 1989 shocker directed by Umberto Lenzi (The Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) under the pseudonym Humphrey Humbert. It’s about a clean-cut-looking psycho (Joe Balogh), driving the Southwest in a white Winnebago picking up female hitchhikers and then stabbing them; taking Polaroids of their corpses and dumping them in the swamps for the alligators to feed on. He picks up a pretty blonde- Daniela (Josie Bissett) who unfortunately is a ringer for his mother, and holds her captive, even cutting and coloring her hair to make her look more like mommy. 

            Hitch-Hike (1977) A journalist (Franco Nero) squabbling with his unhappy wife (Corrine Clery) while traveling to Los Angeles, reluctantly pick up a stranded motorist (David Hess). He turns out to be a dangerous psycho in possession of stolen loot who holds them both hostage. Didn’t they see David Hess in The Last House on the Left? What were they thinking?

            Thumb Tripping (1972) “The trouble starts when someone stops” was the genius ad tagline for this tedious film about a hippie couple (Michael Burns and Meg Foster) who decide to head out hitching on the highway, impulsively accepting every ride they get, no matter the consequences. They encounter swingers, pill-popping truckers and psychopaths. Another ludicrous cinematic illustration about the “love generation.” This film never showed up on home video and is tough to find. Oh, wait. I forgot. It’s on YouTube.

            My Friend Dahmer (2017) Ross Lynch gives a haunted, sad, scary, and unforgettable performance as young (future serial killer) Jeffrey Dahmer in this electrifying film by Marc Meyers based on the graphic novel by Derf Backderf. A later scene shows him picking up a handsome, shirtless hitchhiker coming from a concert. You just know he’ll never be seen alive again.

            Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1979) In Tim Burton’s surreal, inspired, dementedly funny road-trip movie, the irreplaceable Paul Ruebens plays man-child Pee Wee Herman, traveling across the country in search of his stolen bicycle. Seeing him on the side of the road with an over-sized thumb outstretched still makes me howl with laughter even after repeated viewings. And one of his rides with trucker Large Marge (Alice Nunn) is a sequence that always makes children jump in fright.

            Beyond the Darkness (1979) Joe D’Amato’s sick puppy of a film is about taxidermist Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter), who can’t get over the untimely death of his beautiful wife (Cinzia Monreale). So, he digs her body up, takes her home to his remote home, guts and stuffs her, curling up next to the body from time to time. Frank lives with his creepily devoted sister Iris (the unforgettable Franca Stoppi) and when people unexpectedly show up and threaten her brother she has no problem killing them. A hippie girl hitchhiking becomes an unfortunate victim in a sequence that will have you reaching for an air sick bag.

            Ted Bundy (2002) Handsome serial killer Ted Bundy (here played by Michael Reilly Burke) could easily disarm the unfortunate victims he picked up hitchhiking with his nice-guy act, sometimes accompanied by a phony cast on his arm to further placate riders. But when the mask drops, watch out. Director Matthew Bright’s sardonic true crime saga is as subversive as Bundy was in many ways.

            But all pale beside one of the creepiest episodes of The Twilight Zone I saw as a child- The Hitch-Hiker (1960) starring Inger Stevens as Nan Adams, a woman driving along the highway who keeps seeing a weird hitchhiker (Leonard Strong) no matter how many times she passes him or speeds ahead. It was one of those twist-ending episodes that gave me nightmares as a kid and probably should have made me wary of sticking my own thumb out on the scarily unpredictable highways of America.