Director: Robert Harmon
97 minutes (15) 1986
Second Sight 4K Ultra HD
Rating: 8/10
Review by Christopher Geary
Driving from Chicago to California, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), picks up hitch-hiker John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). The road-trip is going well, until John threatens to kill Jim, and says “I want you to stop me.” Lucky Jim manages to get the psycho out of his car, but that’s not the end of it. The crazy hitcher pursues Halsey, murdering anyone that he meets, along the way. Police don’t accept Jim’s wild story, and only highway-cafe local girl Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh, in an early role) eventually believes him enough to accompany increasingly desperate Jim on his journey into hell.
This is a subgenre thriller that moves quite briskly, but really accelerates to a lightning pace whenever Hauer is on-screen, and his scenes crackle with explosively violent energy, and dark humour. All the way through it, there are vague suggestions of supernatural forces around the intriguingly uncanny (seemingly allegorical?), spree-killer, which are thankfully never explained. Howell plays the persecuted innocent Halsey very well indeed, and Hauer was perfect casting as eerie antagonist Ryder. Even Leigh’s rather overly-studied role as Nash is likeable, although she’s just another victim of the lunatic’s mayhem. The Hitcher remains a quite stunning thriller, with plenty of witty dialogue in Eric Red’s knowing script, some tense direction by Robert Harmon, and terrifically arranged stunts action.
It’s a classic modern-day nightmare movie, where outrageous things get worse, dramatically, every time that Halsey wakes up. Mystery-man Ryder is a demonic monster, pretending to be merely human. He gets his kicks on Route 666, halfway between nowhere, USA, and ultimate damnation. The Hitcher is strictly business right from the start. Dark mythical resonance, emerging from existential terror, becomes the movie’s only sub-plot. There are also a few homo-erotic moments in this haunted tale about macho confrontations, with a seduction by charismatic evil. Shot, mostly, on locations, the movie’s grounded in reality, but it explores a fantastically dynamic situation, leading to many horrific events.
“What do you want?” asks Halsey, repeatedly. “That’s what the other guy said,” replies Ryder. Talking never helps in this movie. Language is simply mundane noise, or seemingly redundant in the twisty narrative of a moral dilemma. It was successful enough, on video at least, to warrant a sequel, Louis Morneau’s sadly flawed The HitcherII: I’ve Been Waiting (2003), which prompted a competent but uninspired remake, Dave Myers’ The Hitcher (2007). Both are worth seeing if you enjoy this original movie, fully restored for maximum impact in 4K UHD with HDR and Dolby Atmos.
Disc extras:
- Commentary track by Robert Harmon and Eric Red
- Commentary by critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- Scene specific commentaries
- The Projection Booth podcast: Robert Harmon and Rutger Hauer
- Bullseye: new
interview with Robert Harmon (42 minutes)
- Penning
The Ripper: new interview with Eric Red
- Doomed
To Live: new interview with C. Thomas Howell
- The Man
From Oz: new interview with John Seale
- A Very
Formative Score: new interview with Mark Isham
- Duel
Runner: Leigh Singer on the evolution of The Hitcher and Rutger Hauer
- China
Lake: newly restored short film by Robert Harmon
- The
Calling Card: Robert Harmon on China Lake
- Telephone: short
film by Eric Red
- The
Hitcher: How do these movies get made?
- Trailers
