Pasquale Festa Campanile’s Hitch-Hike is one of my absolute favorite movies. It’s nearly perfect in every way. In fact, I’m quite certain that if I sat down for hours and tried to find flaws with this movie, I’d come up empty handed. So excuse me for a moment while I gush all over this masterpiece.

If you haven’t seen Hitch-Hike, you’re not alone. I wouldn’t say it’s an obscure movie, that’s too strong of a word. But I’d say it definitely qualifies as a little seen movie. I actually saw it for the first time in the last few years when a friend got it as a blind buy. Since then I’ve watched it multiple times and I’m very happy to say that the new DVD/Blu-ray combo from OFDb Filmworks is the best release of this film to date.

Franco Nero and Corinne Cléry star as Walter and Eve Mancini. They’re a married couple on a road trip back to Los Angeles. The road trip isn’t much fun as the couple is going through a variety of marital problems, most of which center around Walter’s drinking problem. Walter is a reporter and Eve’s father is his boss, so it’s not hard to see where Walter’s drinking problem likely originated.

Along the way they come across a stranded motorist named Adam Konitz (David Hess), who is hoping to hitch a ride into town. Walter is reluctant and says they should keep going but Eve insists that they should give Adam a ride. The ride starts off well enough with Adam attempting small talk. It doesn’t take long however, before Adam is revealed to be an escapee from a nearby institute for the criminal insane.

Adam orders Eve to drive them to Mexico. Word of Adam’s escape has already spread and police have checkpoints setup a long side the highway. Because of this Adam can’t simply kill Eve and Walter. He needs them to get to Mexico.

What’s great about Hitch-Hike is how the three leads interact and play off one another. These characters are three very strong and very different personalities and they’re forced into this small place together. They constantly go at one another, each one trying to gain an upper hand. To mix things up a bit and keep it interesting, we’re never really sure who to root for out of the three.

There’s Adam, who naturally should be the bad guy. He’s hijacked their car, he’s a criminal, he’s killed some cops and he’s making very vulgar advances on Eve. Yet, Adam is not without his charm. There is a likability to him. You may not want him to win in the end, but you definitely enjoy seeing him on screen.

Then there’s Walter and Eve. They’re a married couple and you should want to cheer them on as a team. You should want them to overtake Adam. Yet Walter is basically an asshole. He’s an alcoholic and he treats Eve like a piece of meat. How can anyone want a good outcome for Walter? But is Eve all that innocent? Eve seems to sort of hold her father being Walter’s boss over Walter’s head. She seems to take a bit of enjoyment in Walter’s struggles. Then there’s the relationship she builds with Adam. She doesn’t throw herself at him by any means, but she appears to get enjoyment from the obvious anger Walter gets from watching Adam sexually assault her. It’s very strange, but quite wonderful.

The head-to-head matchup of Franco’s Walter against Hess’ Adam is the stuff of legend. These guys hate each other but there’s this odd, mutual respect. The relationship between these too is somewhat reminiscent to that of Ben Wade and Dan Evans in 3:10 to Yuma. A great example is a scene in which Walter tries to signal to a cop that they’re in trouble. The cop acts funny which allows Adam to wise up to the situation and it eventually results in the cop’s death. Eve is outraged by Walter’s attempt, thinking it could have cost them their lives. Adam, on the other hand, is quite impressed by Walter’s attempt. He basically tips his hat to Walter.

Hitch-Hike feels incredibly violent. Once the credits roll, you think you’ve been repeatedly hammered over the head. In actuality though, the movie isn’t that violent. It just feels that way. And that’s impressive filmmaking. Hitch-Hike is very tense. The entire movie keeps you on the edge-of-your-seat. At any moment you think an explosion of brutality will explode across the screen and that’s what gets you.

The music for Hitch-Hike comes courtesy of the legendary Ennio Morricone and it’s absolutely wonderful. I can’t say with certainty that this is my favorite Morricone score (how do you choose just one?) but it’s up there for sure. There’s actually a really nice juxtaposition between the music playing throughout the movie and that which is on screen. Often times the music has a very light and happy nature to it while the action is very intense and aggressive.

I could go on and on about Hitch-Hike. It really is a remarkable achievement that I’m very pleased to say OFDb Filmworks treated extremely well. The transfer is beautiful, bringing to life the brilliant camera work of Franco Di Giacomo and Antonio Siciliano stunning in HD while still preserving those film elements that we love oh so much. The movie comes on three discs (DVD, Blu-ray, and DVD of extras) in a box with some fantastic artwork that you’re not likely to see on the cover of any release in the states. Much like OFDb’s release of The Resurrected, Hitch-Hike does come with a nice little booklet, but it’s completely in German. The special features include a documentary. Unfortunately it’s mostly in Italian with German subtitles. So unless you speak German or Italian, only the David Hess portions of the documentary will be of use to you. A bonus that I rather enjoyed was a photo gallery slide show. Typically I don’t care for these, but this photo gallery consists entirely of different Hitch-Hike movies posters, artwork and lobby cards from around the world. I’m a sucker for posters so this was definitely a nice perk.

I can’t think of a single reason as to why anyone shouldn’t watch Hitch-Hike. It’s thrilling, suspenseful, funny, brutal and anything else you could possibly want it to be. It’s the perfect movie.

Hitch-Hike is now available on Blu-ray from OFDb Filmworks.