This straightforward story concerns a mama’s boy struggling with mental illness who targets hitchhikers. When young women start disappearing in an area near Los Angeles, the police chief and his partner (played by Russell Johnson and Randy Echols) focus their attention on a mild-mannered delivery driver for a laundry service (Robert Gribbin). "Hitch Hike to Hell," made in 1977, is a low-budget film with a basic plot and unremarkable production values. The villain bears a resemblance to Clark Kent, while the police chief looks like The Professor from *Gilligan’s Island*. The captain mentions three serial killers who were well-known at that time: The Zodiac Killer in San Francisco (whose identity remains unknown), The Skid Row Slasher in Los Angeles (later identified as Vaughan Greenwood) and The Houston Mass Murderer, Dean Corll. However, the film is actually loosely inspired by Edmund Kemper, known as The Co-ed Killer, whose victims between 1972 and 1973 were six female students hitchhiking near Santa Cruz County, about an hour south of San Francisco. The movie was initially promoted as a lighthearted Crown International film featuring attractive women and fast cars, but it’s quite different from that. Despite its limited resources and amateurish filmmaking, the movie presents a serious examination of a disturbed serial killer, eliciting some level of understanding for the perpetrator. While there's no justification for what Ed Kemper did in real life or what his fictional counterpart does onscreen, the story attributes it to severe mental and spiritual problems, as well as a troubled relationship with his mother. The overall feel is similar to “Targets” combined with “The Toolbox Murders.” It’s easy to dismiss films like this, but there are some genuinely good moments that stand out, even evoking emotion, such as the lieutenant's reservations about bringing children into a world filled with such evil. The portrayal of the murdered girl’s mother’s shock and grief is also surprisingly affecting. Russell Johnson’s role on *Gilligan’s Island* had ended ten years prior to this film, but he appears virtually unchanged, just slightly older. The movie has a running time of 1 hour and 28 minutes and was filmed in Encino, Los Angeles, which is located between 7 and 12 miles west of the famous Hollywood Sign. GRADE: B-

Source on TMDB