Walter Mancini (Franco Nero) and his wife Eve (Corinne Cléry) pick up a young man with a suitcase full of stolen money, Adam (David Hess). He forces them to take him to the border, while he takes a personal pleasure in tormenting the couple. They are trying to find a way to strike back...I watched this movie twice before, but that was a long time ago, possibly around 1990 and again around 2000, but when I watched it for the third time on Blu-ray in 2016, I was surprised how many little details I still remembered, even words of the dialog. 'Hitch-Hike' has got a strange, memorable intensity. Really none of the characters is sympathetic, everybody looks for his own advantage and doesn't mind whether it requires murder or treachery. A truly nihilistic sleaze movie, probably quite shocking for some audiences in its complete absence of morality. Franco Nero does not play a hero - his character Mancini takes as much pleasure in humiliating his wife as the criminal does. 'Hitch-Hike', it must be said, provides a great opportunity for David Hess to play a raging lunatic, who enjoys telling his life-story, pleased with himself to a ridiculous degree. Last not least, a good soundtrack is provided by Ennio Morricone.

With an uncompromising dark tone, effectively depraved moments, and committed performances by its star trio, "Autostop Rosso Sangue" (American title: "Hitch-Hike") is a solid and compelling exploitation feature from co-writer / director Pasquale Festa Campanile. It's a story of three strong personalities coming together fatefully. Played out against some stunning rural vistas, it's got enough gore, sleaziness, and nudity to satisfy devotees of this genre.Franco "Django" Nero plays a reporter named Walter Mancini who's going on a trip with his wife Eve (Corinne Clery of "Moonraker"). Walter only really married her because of her family's money but now he's gotten tired of her. Since they already don't get along too well, it only gets worse when hitchhiker Adam Konitz (the legendary Mr. David Hess) shows up. Eve gives him a ride basically just to annoy her husband, and Adam reveals himself to be - in true David Hess fashion - a demented, horny creep. Most of the rest of the movie shows what happens when Walter and Eve find that they can't get Adam out of their lives."Hitch-Hike" is potent stuff, with two motorcycle cops getting gunned down and a pivotal scene involving Adams' rape of Eve. The stunning Ms. Clery shows all of the goods in a couple of shots. The story hinges on the antagonistic relationship between these new acquaintances and how Adam is always at work manipulating and taunting Walter. Interestingly, it doesn't quite play out the way one would expect it to; it has some surprises up its sleeve, and it ends on a bleak, nihilistic note. The three stars are good together, with the film hitting its stride upon the introduction of the Adam character. It maintains a rather intimate feel, with not very many major players; even Adams' partners-in-crime don't end up with that much to do. The photography is gorgeous, the action exciting (there's a sequence reminiscent of "Duel" at one point), and the tension palpable. It's all set to an eclectic and striking soundtrack courtesy of the great Ennio Morricone.Highly recommended to fans of the three leads.Eight out of 10.

A European couple on a long road trip in California picks up a hitch-hiker who turns out to be a psycho. This low-budget thriller looks and sounds cheesy. It appears that Nero and Clery, playing a bickering couple in a troubled marriage, are dubbed, but it could just be bad acting. In fact, the acting is uniformly bad, including Hess in a wildly over-the-top performance as the psycho hitcher. The script looks like it was probably written in about an hour. The main characters are strictly one-dimensional while the secondary characters are zero-dimensional. Clery, of "The Story of O" fame, has no qualms about disrobing for her craft. What a dedicated actress!

David Hess is at it again as another rapist-psycho in the exploitation "road-thriller", HITCH-HIKE. An Italian film shot to look as though it was filmed in the desert of the U.S. south-west, HITCH-HIKE is an often tense and entertaining film, that despite a good bit of relatively graphic violence, rape, and other "strong" content, never really seems to cross the line into blatantly sleazy exploit territory. An exploit film definitely - but one with a bit more substance than most...Playing a role much like the ones he's portrayed in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and HOUSE AT THE EDGE OF THE PARK - Hess puts on a powerful performance as a bank robber picked up by a drunk reporter and his extremely tolerant wife - the daughter of a publishing mogul. Hess is one of three who escaped the robbery unscathed, and is on the run and looking for safe-passage to Mexico to spend his new-found two million dollars. Along the way, Hess and company have run-in's with cops, the other remaining bank robbers, and other "obstacles" until the "shocking" finale...HITCH-HIKE will be a winner amongst 70's exploit fans, and also fans of Hess's other over-the-top performances. Franco Nero as the rough-and-tumble alcoholic reporter and Corinne Clery as his tolerant wife shine very much as well (especially Clery, who is gorgeous and spends a good bit of the film in various degrees of undress...). The storyline is pretty straight-forward, but has a "free-form" feel to it that allows for several twists and strange situations. My only real complaint is that the film feels about twenty minutes too long, as if some of the scenes towards the end could have been trimmed a bit - but the "downbeat" ending is worth it. Definitely worth a look to exploit and Hess fans...8.5/10