Gender-swapped Italian rip-offs can be fun—see the 1989 Italian made, sexploitation fueled DUEL wannabe HARD CAR/Hard Car-Desiderio sfrenato del piacere, by no means a “good” film but certainly a diverting one. HITCHER IN THE DARK (PAURA NEL BUIO) was another 1989 spaghetti-fied take on a successful American antecedent, in this case the 1986 slasher pic THE HITCHER, mixed with THE COLLECTOR (1965). The director of this updating was the Italian sleaze legend Umberto Lenzi (working under the Americanized nom de plume “Humphrey Humbert”) and the producer the equally legendary Joe D’Amato.
Gender-swapped Italian rip-offs can be fun…
Mark (Joe Balogh) is a shades-wearing young punk driving his father’s Winnebago down the Virginia coastline (this being a rare example of an Italian film set in America that was actually filmed in America). After picking up an attractive woman hitchhiker and impulsively stabbing her to death Mark selects another pretty young thing: Daniella (future MELROSE PLACE star Josie Bissett), who’s fleeing her abusive boyfriend Kevin (Jason Saucier). Mark wastes no time drugging and handcuffing Daniella, due to the fact that she resembles his late mother (who deserted him when he was ten), a resemblance Mark enhances by cutting her hair to match his ma’s ‘do.
Kevin, meanwhile, is hot on their tail. He of course ends up subdued in the Winnebago along with Daniella and gets the word “PIG” carved into his chest (a scene Lenzi later called a “stain” on the film). This leads to further lunacy on the part of Mark, and escape attempts by Daniella, in route to a thoroughly implausible “happy” ending that was apparently forced on Lenzi by D’Amato.
…a thoroughly implausible “happy” ending that was apparently forced on Lenzi by D’Amato.
The film is marked by clumsy and obvious attempts at suspense. Lenzi wasn’t too interested in the material (the film’s defenders claim it was “not meant to be scary”), as is evident in his overreliance on a thoroughly mediocre score by Carlo Maria Cordio. Scenes that were intended to be tension-filled (such as Mark’s mini-birthday party, in which Daniela tries to affect an escape) aren’t, with Mark evidently supposed to be a far more compelling antagonist than he actually is (Norman Bates he’s not). As Daniella, Josie Bisset isn’t much better, delivering a performance more suited to episodic television than a feature film (even one of the straight-to-video variety).
It’s all very eighties in look and feel, with the relentlessness of Lenzi’s earlier films (like ALMOST HUMAN and CANNIBAL FEROX) replaced by a glossy and synthetic sheen. This isn’t to say that Lenzi neglects his duties as an exploiteur, as he makes sure to include some wholly gratuitous footage of a wet T-shirt contest and much overtly incestuous overtones, but those things can’t hope to forgive the inertness of the overall product.
Vital Statistics
HITCHER IN THE DARK (PAURA NEL BUIO)
Filmirage
Director: “Humphrey Humbert” (Umberto Lenzi)
Producer: Joe D’Amato
Screenplay: Uolga Pehar
Cinematography: Jerry Phillips
Editing: Kathleen Stratton
Cast: Joe Balogh, Josie Bissett, Jason Saucier, Robin Fox, Thomas Mitchell, Fay W. Edwards, Tom Schultheis, Mel Davis, Sandra Parker, Gary Wade Morton, Dan Smith, Michael Lewis, Charlie Edwards, Fred Bittner, Julia Howards