Set in the early 70's, this film begins with two high school girls by the name of "Debbie" (Kathleen Cody) and "Karen" (Dianne Hull) deciding to drive to Big Sur to enjoy a weekend of fun on the beach. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker named "Will" (Michael Ontkean) who has just gotten out of the Army after spending some time over in Vietnam. And although he seems friendly enough, his experiences in Vietnam have left him extremely traumatized. So much so, that he often reacts with violence whenever he becomes angered. On a similar note, as it so happens, a serial killer has also recently come upon the scene coinciding with Will's appearance at a hippy commune in that same area--the same commune which both Debbie and Karen are soon to visit. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this movie was made during a time when drive-ins were starving for just about anything they could get their hands on due to the fact that the regular theaters were acquiring all of the mainstream films in circulation. So, to partially resolve this problem, low-budget films of this type were hurriedly produced and disseminated to the drive-ins on a frequent basis. Yet even then it wasn't enough and many of these same drive-ins eventually closed all the same. But I digress. In any case, this film starts off rather slowly but then gets interesting after the first 20 minutes or so--before coming to a screeching halt at the very end. Quite honestly, it's almost as if they ran out of money and didn't have any more film on hand at that point. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a terrible film necessarily, the low-budget aspects were simply too prevalent to be ignored, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.
