Wednesday, December 13, 2017

An American Hippie in Israel (1972)

aka Ha-Temprist, aka The Hitch Hiker

How bad is it? Sort of Rocky Horror bad: more weird than terrible.
Should you see it? If you like weird 1970's films.

This was impossible to see outside Israel, where it's developed a midnight-movie cult, until a brief DVD release. An American decides to hike through Israel, get high as much as possible, have as much sex as possible and he meets up with a like-minded woman and they go to a deserted island. Why there are sort-of mime overseers, dream sequences with guys with cassettes for heads and extremely fake giant sharks is hard to explain (well, it was the 1970's). The film meanders a lot, there's some anti-war monologues and then the film goes bonkers in the final reel as the fun-loving hippies go feral and beat each other to death with rocks. It's competently shot and acted, adding to the oddity.


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