A spooky little independent short from rural East Anglia, archived by the good chaps at the UEA as part of their female filmmakers collection. This one lasts for 15 minutes and offers a spin on the classic phantom hitchhiker story. The acting and production values are basic, but what this does offer up is mood, and plenty of it. Variously creepy, romantic, mysterious and tinged with sadness, this is quite subtle and effective for what it is.
4 Reviews
Nice take on a classic urban legend
Milk_Tray_Guy1 March 2021
Interesting short (just 15 mins), based around the classic 'phantom hitchhiker' legend. If you know the story you'll know exactly how this plays out. Obviously a no-budget production, but the small cast (this is the only credit for all of them) do a pretty reasonable job. The pleasant rural setting with an everyday kind of atmosphere somehow makes it all the more unreal, and even creepy. Worth catching if you can. 7/10.
Rather odd short
malcolmgsw22 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Man driving on a country road comes across a girl and offers her a lift to her home.He drops her off at the top of her road.They arrange to meet again.He phones her number and they agree to meet on a Sunday.She doesn't turn up.He finds her address and goes to her house.Her parents tell him she walked out two years before and they have cut off the phone.When he goes back to the road she is waiting at the bus stop and he gives her a lift.
Film is a bit amateurish.The sound is post synchronized.The photography is inadequate.Probably not enough light source.
The Legend of the Phantom Hitchhiker
JamesHitchcock4 January 2024
On November 19th 1965 three young women, a bride-to-be and her two bridesmaids, tragically died in a car crash on Bluebell Hill, on the A229 between Chatham and Maidstone, Kent, while returning from her hen night. Ever since there have been tales that the hill is haunted by the ghost of a young woman, said to be one of the three crash victims. She typically appears as a hitchhiker who thumbs a lift from a driver, generally a young man, and then mysteriously vanishes from his car. In some versions of the story she asks to be taken to an address in Chatham, but disappears before she gets there.
I mention this story because it is well-known to me as I grew up in Maidstone during the seventies. It is probably the area's best-known ghost story, and the UK's best-known version of an urban legend which has become known as "The Phantom Hitchhiker". (There are variants from many other countries). "The Girl from Willow Green" is a filmed version of this story, possibly inspired by the Bluebell Hill legend.
A driver named Jim picks up a girl named Penny from a rural bus stop and takes her to the village of Willow Green. He asks for a date and she gives him her telephone number. Attempts to contact her, however, are unsuccessful, and when Jim makes further inquiries he learns from Penny's parents that she was killed in a car crash two years earlier.
This is a very short film, clearly made by amateurs, which is why I am not assigning it a mark out of ten. The camera work and sound quality are not good, but the film still has a certain mysterious and unsettling quality; the ending, which seems to be repeating the film's opening, is particularly enigmatic. I picked up the film when it was recently shown on the Talking Pictures network; it is worth looking out for if it is ever repeated.
I mention this story because it is well-known to me as I grew up in Maidstone during the seventies. It is probably the area's best-known ghost story, and the UK's best-known version of an urban legend which has become known as "The Phantom Hitchhiker". (There are variants from many other countries). "The Girl from Willow Green" is a filmed version of this story, possibly inspired by the Bluebell Hill legend.
A driver named Jim picks up a girl named Penny from a rural bus stop and takes her to the village of Willow Green. He asks for a date and she gives him her telephone number. Attempts to contact her, however, are unsuccessful, and when Jim makes further inquiries he learns from Penny's parents that she was killed in a car crash two years earlier.
This is a very short film, clearly made by amateurs, which is why I am not assigning it a mark out of ten. The camera work and sound quality are not good, but the film still has a certain mysterious and unsettling quality; the ending, which seems to be repeating the film's opening, is particularly enigmatic. I picked up the film when it was recently shown on the Talking Pictures network; it is worth looking out for if it is ever repeated.
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