Autostop rosso sangue aka HITCH-HIKE is a beautiful piece of Eurosleaze draped in a shroud of Americana. It's a psychological thriller and road movie. It's an Italian film, set in America (filmed in Italy made to look like south western United Staes) so there is some bad dubbing—to be expected, but not as bad as some others that I have seen. The dubbing didn't bother me because the performances of the cast are so superb.
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The film stars Franco Nero (DJANGO) and Corrine Clery (THE DEVIL'S HONEY) as Walter and Eve Mancini, a married couple that have grown tired of each other but there's still a good amount of co-dependency to keep them together. They are on a hunting trip when they pick up a hitchhiker along the way named, Adam Konitz, played by David Hess (LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT). Konitz turns out to be an escapee from a mental institute with a cache case of 2 million dollars that he stole with 2 other escapees. Everything is fine until Adam makes a verbal sexual advance towards Eve causing Walter and Adam to get into a fist fight on the side of the road. Some fisticuffs go on, and then Adam pulls out a gun. Now Adam is in control, and Walter and Eve are his prisoners. What follows is a psychological hell ride from Northern California to Mexico.
The film features a pretty simple plot but it's the performances, and smart dialogue that helps the film be something better than your typical Eurosleaze flick. Of course the top notch cast helps. Franco, Hess and Clery play morally questionable people. Franco pretty much plays an alcoholic asshole that treats his wife like crap, Hess is a charismatic psycho (what? Hess? No!), and Clery is kind of a uppity bitch. So how do you make a film work with no likeable characters? Director, Pasquale Festa Campanile somehow pulls it off, and it's brilliant. At some point in the film you feel (something) for all of the characters. Hess is too charismatic not to like a la Alex from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Franco is a drunk, and a chauvinistic pig, yet he grows on you by the end of the film, while Clery is the most moral of the three, and just down right sexy.
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David Hess is great. The man has been in a lot of films (not as many as some others who have been in the biz as long as he has), mostly genre films, and his performance in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT pretty much made him a horror icon. There are 3 standout roles of his career, the aforementioned LAST HOUSE, a similar role in the Italian sleaze classic HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK and HITCH-HIKE. Again, Hess plays a pathological killer (cause he's so damn good at it), but he gets way more dialogue, allowing him to actually stretch his acting muscles, and he gives what is arguably the best performance of his career.
Franco Nero is the fucking man! He is always great, and here he's almost a tad subdued, not the over the top antihero of some of his other films—though he still comes off as a kind of an antihero here as well. He plays a sports newspaper reporter that hasn't written anything in a while and has become bitter in his middle age. He drinks to forget his problems, which has only driven a wedge between him and his wife. When Adam finds out that Walter is a writer, he proposes that he will let Walter live if he writes Adam's biography. This brings a whole other element to the film, and you start to wonder if an alliance is being formed. You'll start wondering about how the final outcome of the film will come about and it locks you in.
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I'm not familiar with any of Campanile's other films, besides his a few of his Italian comedies (WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS and it's sequel, both starring the gorgeous Senta Berger), but I'll probably look into more of them after seeing HITCH-HIKE. He really does a good job of making Italian hillside look like America. Most scenes take place in a car (similar to Mario Bava's RABID DOGS), and that can be hard to pull off, but he makes it work through the entire film. I love road movies, especially ones that take place in the desert, and that's just what HITCH-HIKE is, but with a thriller twist. The cinematography is above average for this kind of film. The scenery shots are fantastic. HITCH-HIKE did not get any real distribution in the states, but did great around the world. It's a shame because I'm sure it would be a bigger movie if it had.
There's jus one more element that ties this baby up in a nice little bow—the score, by none other than the legendary Ennio Morricone. I know I've mentioned it in other reviews, but Morricone is my number one all time favorite composer. Known mostly for his Spaghetti Western and Giallo scores, Morricone has worked on a lot of films in all sorts of genres. His score for HITCH-HIKE is reminiscent of his Spaghetti Western scores with it's one-note banjo plucking, and acoustic guitar picking. The oddness of the score adds another layer to the film. When I watch the opening credits to a film, and I see Morricone's name, I always perk up because I know, even if the film is shit, at least the score will be good.
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HITCH-HIKE is a great and above average sleazy exploitation flick that fans of traditional cinema along with horror/thriller, as well as Eurosleaze fans will enjoy. I highly recommend it.
HITCH-HIKE trailer