SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES #7: The Grindhouse Goes Rural!
By Nick Cato

The first time I saw Tobe Hooper’s iconic classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) was during a 1981 re-release.  The film freaked-out my friends and I, and I couldn’t wait to see it again.  My wish was granted a few months later when my family took a trip to North Carolina.  We were there for close to two weeks and I had grown a bit tired of the church picnics and (seemingly) constant community softball games.  Imagine this young suburbanite’s thrill when he scanned the local paper one day to see an ad for a double-bill of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and something called HITCH HIKE TO HELL (1977).  I was excited enough at the prospect of seeing CHAINSAW again (remember this was a few years before the VHS boom of the early ’80s) and was ecstatic about this second feature that was mentioned in small type at the bottom of the ad.

Now my only problem (being I was only 13 at the time) was to con either my dad or one of my older cousins into taking me.  Thankfully, I showed the ad to one of my “cuzzin’s” (that’s Southern for “cousin”) and he said he’d take me and tell my parents I was staying at his house that night – but to keep my mouth shut.

To make matters better, the films played at a drive-in that had one of the coolest “snack bars” I ever saw: right next to the popcorn/soda concession stand, some old guy was bar-b-queuing chicken, burgers, and ribs!  YEE-HAW!

So, with a well-done burger and a large Coke, my cuzzin’ and I (along with a few of his friends) kicked back as the first feature, HITCH HIKE TO HELL, began.

While I’ve seen my share of trash on TV up to this point in my life, HITCH HIKE TO HELL was my first exposure to something THIS BAD on the big screen.  After some really silly opening song, we’re introduced to Howard, a nerdy-looking mama’s boy (cue PSYCHO music) who delivers laundry for a living in a van that looks like it’s about to break down at any moment.  Howard picks up a seemingly endless line of hitch hikers…and while I haven’t seen this one since attempting to sit through it a second time on VHS in the late ’80s (I FF through most of it), I recall Howard would strangle certain hitchers to death if he found out they didn’t like their mothers!  Yep, there’s PSYCHO-influence-a-plenty here, along with just-about no gore, blatant gay-bashing, and near-talent-free acting, with the exception of Russell Johnson as a police captain (you read that right—the same Russell Johnson who played The Professor on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND!).  I still recall the warm, silent air of the drive-in bursting into laughter the moment he came onto the screen.

While HITCH HIKE TO HELL is a total waste of celluloid (even for most lovers of bad films), there’s one sequence that, to this day, I can’t believe happened (keep in mind that this film was shot in 1968, shelved for two years until 1970 for a limited release, then was more widely released in 1977, until finally resurfacing as a co-feature for TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in 1981, shortly before finding a home on VHS thanks to exploitation king Harry Novak’s former video company): While Howard picks up mostly older teenagers, he eventually meets up with an 11-12 year old female runaway.  It’s never shown what Howard did to the poor kid, but the Professor—err—I mean the police captain—finds her dead body in a dumpster at the end of the film.  Although her lifeless body is only shown for a split second, the audience I saw this with groaned in disapproval.  I remember my stomach dropping a notch as I attempted to digest my burger and believe that this nerdy character would TRULY have it in him to kill a young girl just for running away from home!  Amazing that this plotless, scare-free “horror” film actually had a jolt in it.

HITCH HIKE TO HELL is a horrible film.  It’s tedious for most of its running time, and I’m betting the majority of horror fans wouldn’t bother with it even at the mere mention of an (implied) child murder.  But, considering this chunk of sleaze was filmed in 1968, at the dawn of the hippie love generation, it’ll make you believe these producers took the bad brown acid long before it was available at Woodstock.  Regardless of all its faults, it’s nonetheless an interesting piece of semi-groundbreaking underground American horror.

And to this day I never told my old man my cuzzin’ took me.

(END NOTE: For those of you who just HAVE to see this, Something Weird Video released it a few years ago on a deluxe DVD edition with a second equally-as-bad feature, KIDNAPPED COED. 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED).

© Copyright 2010 by Nick Cato