Hitcher in the Dark

Umberto Lenzi (born August 6, 1931), is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo murder mysteries (in addition to writing many of the screenplays himself).

Lenzi was born in Massa Marittima, Grosseto, southern Tuscany. He is the writer/director of two highly controversial exploitation films: Mangiati vivi (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981) as well as the director of the film adaptation of the Italian comic book Kriminal (1966). He was one of the first Italian directors to get involved in the Giallo film craze (along with Mario Bava and Dario Argento), and his “Man From Deep River” is credited as being the film that started the Italian “cannibal film” genre later popularized by Ruggero Deodato, Jess Franco and others. Lenzi has claimed in interviews however that he was never too enamored of the cannibal films he made, being much prouder of his war films and crime/ western/ action movies. In spite of his moments of ground-breaking originality, however, Lenzi wasn’t above “cloning” popular hit movies such as “Conan The Barbarian” (with his 1982 “Ironmaster”) and “Dawn of the Dead” (with his 1980 “Nightmare City”). Lenzi has said in interviews that “Man From Deep River” was his best cannibal film (the other two he only did to make a quick buck, he said), and his favorite giallos were “Orgasmo” and “Seven Blood-Stained Orchids”. “Black Demons” was another of his all-time favorites, a “potential masterpiece” marred only by the poor acting of the female lead he was forced to work with, he said. —wikipedia