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.
