Hey, I understand we all gotta start somewhere. It’s just unfortunate Josie Bissett had to start her career not with TV’s hit Melrose Place, but a few years earlier with Umberto Lenzi’s Hitcher in the Dark. I’m guessing the movie is one she’d rather go unseen … and now that I’ve seen it, I understand that, too.
Angry at catching her jock boyfriend (Jason Saucier of producer Joe D’Amato’s Top Model) for flirting with another woman, Bissett’s Daniela ditches their campsite to return home. She happily accepts a ride to the bus station from the boyish Mark (Joe Balogh of Lenzi’s Black Demons) and his comically large Winnebago. En route, he offers her a Coca-Cola with Rohypnol — I believe it was branded “New Coke” back then — and she blacks out, eventually coming to handcuffed in the RV’s bedroom.
A less likable Christopher Atkins with T-shirts tucked snugly into belted khakis, Balogh’s Mark intends on keeping Daniela captive, because she reminds him of his beloved dead mother. To feed his own delusion, he takes scissors to his prisoner’s hair, making Daniela look like Mom — or, judging by Bissett’s terrible wig, Mary Martin in the 1954 Broadway musical production of Peter Pan. He does this as she sleeps, which is the state she’s in when he shoots nude Polaroids — an act icky on its own, but unintentionally more unpleasant since Bissett, although of legal age, looks to be about 15.
Tiresome when it should titillate, the broad-daylight film lazily trips on the low bar of being a cheap, enjoyable Italian rip-off of 1986’s crazy-popular cable staple The Hitcher. Mostly taking place inside the RV, Hitcher in the Dark is essentially a two-hander, which would be fine if either actor exhibited a kung-fu grip. It’s not that old pro Lenzi had completely lost his touch, since the same year gave us Nightmare Beach, which is nothing but fun.
The most engaging part of Dark is hearing the dated line, “Hey, who do you think are, Mickey Rourke?” and reading all the oddly named (and inconsistently capitalized) characters in the closing credits: to wit, “Big man store,” “Toyota’s woman,” “1 Greaser” and “2 Greaser.” —Rod Lott