Hitcher in the Dark, Giallo Comes to Virginia Beach

The 1990s delivered us two great tragedies.  One, the Clintons!  The second is that Heather Locklear and Josie Bissett never had a cat-fight on "Melrose Place."  Josie Bissett was one of TV's hottest vixens in the 1990s.  Before that, she was a sultry babe in a Umberto Lenzi film in which she underwent humiliating torture and rape for 90 minutes.  Today we look at 1988's "Hitcher in the Dark." 

Mark (Joe Balogh) is a 20 year old hunk driving up and down the roads of Virginia Beach looking for beautiful babes to rape, torture, and murder.  He drives a Winnebago and as the film begins, this rich kid with mommy issues is raping and slicing up a beautiful blonde in his motorhome.  Then he sees the nubile Daniela (Bissett) and decides he must have her.  Daniela has just dumped her two-timing boyfriend and Mark abducts her.  He'll drug her, strip her, rape her, slap her around, rape her some more, and rape her some more.  Poor Daniela, Mark takes Polaroids of her while she is drugged and naked.  Daniela will spend most of her time chained up in the Winnebago.  

Mark abuses the snot out of her and even insists on watching her showering and going to the bathroom.  He'll cut most of her hair off to make Daniela look like his mother...who he "loves."  Yep, Mark has an unhealthy attraction to his mother who abandoned him 10 years ago.  Searching for Daniela is her now ex-boyfriend Kevin (Jason Saucier).  He wants Daniela back...we can't blame him, she is a dish and a half.  Kevin will be distracted by a gratuitous wet T-shirt contest and give Mark time to slap and rape Daniela around some more.  As Daniela gets bruised and bloodied she has an idea...seduce Mark instead of resisting.  This doesn't work and causes Mark to slap her harder.   Now Mark is losing more of his sanity and starts murdering blokes to keep Daniela in his Winnebago.  Daniela seems doomed and...well, you'll see.

Daniela's fate is an ominous one and it is difficult to watch the abuse dumped on her by Mark.  Does Daniela have a chance of escape?  Will Josie Bissett suffer the same fate so many nubile babes suffer in Giallo films?  Did the absolute pounding Josie Bissett took in this film prepare her for her role in "Melrose Place" a few years later?  Not the feel good film of 1988, this Umberto Lenzi work is heartbreaking and quite perverted.  For a movie watching experience that will tickle your prurient interests, see "Hitcher in the Dark."