Review of Pick-up (1975) by Joshua L — 12 Oct 2008

Strangely this movie got released as part of a "Grindhouse Double Feature" DVD ( along with a movie called " The Teacher"). Aside from the abundant nudity and softcore groping, it is not really what I expected. Rather than being sleazy and gritty like most old grindhouse movies, it's kind of arty, a little pretentious, and mostly just plain weird. It doesn't really fit in with stuff like "Hitchhike to Hell" or "The Hitchhikers" or the more exploitative youth-oriented films of the era.

A guy driving a tricked-out camper van and making some kind of mysterious delivery picks up two hippie chicks. One of them is a nymphomaniac, so of course they immediately have sex. The other is revealed to be suffering from religious delusions as the result of having been molested by a priest (a straight priest?--now I've heard everything!). After the threesome break down in the Florida Everglades the secrets of the girls begin to be revealed a little with flashbacks (between the sex scenes), but the movie also gets exponentially weirder.

One plus about the movie is the two girls are very pretty and not like the sleazy skanks that were often in these kind of movies. The cinematography is also very impressive and professional, and for a "grindhouse" movie they sure used a good looking, wide-screen print. The low-budget is pretty obvious by a lack of sync sound in a lot of places (which might be the reason for the kind of nebulous plot and character development). With its emphasis on the visuals at the expense of plot and acting, this almost seems like a foreign movie of that era--like maybe Jean Rollin was slumming in the Florida Everglades. All in all, I guess I'd recommend it, especially if you're looking for a weird, arty hippie movie, but it seems pretty mis-marketed as a "grindhouse" flick.