The Hitcher Review
by Clint Morris
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Sometime just before the mid 90s – around about the time Universal and Gus Van Sant decided the classic chiller Psycho
needed to be remade; which reviews and public opinion soon decided was
an erroneous judgment – Hollywood took a wrong turn off the interstate
of originality and onto the worn roads of repeativille.
When
they turned up in horror-remake land, they were convinced they’d
arrived in a land of opportunity and potential – an easy breezy place
where the populace did more than just milk cows…they milked classic
films. But like the crazy island inhabitants of The Wicker Man,
The Hollywoodians’ new stop would come at a price : anyone outside town
limits would view them as a dinted marginal – merely interested in
their own party, and nobody beyond it.
Like the Bird flu, the trend of remaking old horror movies spread faster than butter on bread once Van Sant redid Psycho and Joel Silver reworked House on Haunted Hill (1999). Over the past couple of years, Tinseltown has been on an even bigger roll – they’ve remade everything from The Ring, Dark Water, The Hills Have Eyes to The Omen, Pulse and The Fog. At the time of writing, stringent fans of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween
are on a street corner picketing the new Rob Zombie-directed remake,
due in theatres this October. In other words, we, the cinema-going
public, are only getting madder.
Throughout the ‘90s, Michael
Bay was nicknamed ‘the king of the popcorn action movie’, thanks to his
mega-budgeted ultra-cheesy efforts like The Rock and Armageddon. These days, he’s better known as ‘that guy that bankrolls all the slipshod horror remakes’ – films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and The Amityville Horror
(2005). Bay’s now taking a page out of Wes Craven’s book and whacking
his name on things – sorry, things that’ll probably make money –
without contributing much to the project at all. Well, besides a name…
and maybe bringing some extra bucks to the production.
Bay’s latest producing effort is The Hitcher,
a remake of the cult video hit starring Rutger Hauer and C.Thomas
Howell, a film best known for ‘that scene, with that girl, and that
car’…oh, and one helluva terrifying villain, played by Hauer. The redo,
like Bay’s previous horror rehaunts, again makes the original look like
well, the 1988 favourite Oscar Contender, Titanic – unbeatable.
Same
story - well, except the fact that the young hero is now a young
heroine – as the previous film, except, it ain’t half as scary; the
performances aren’t half as good (Sean Bean’s not bad, but he’s not
Rutger) and the thing’s structured as bad as that wonky bridge at the
start of Beetlejuice.
Penned by Jake Wade Wall (who also penned the remake of When A Stranger Calls), this Hitcher
tells of a college couple Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) and Jim Halsey
(Zachary Knighton) who hit the road in a 1970 Oldsmobile 442… and end
up offering the mysterious John Ryder (Sean Bean) a ride. When he
finally leaves their car, they’re convinced they’re free of the
whack-job, but little do they know he’ll be stalking them for the next
couple of reels of film.
Music-video director Dave Meyers gives
the film a nice slick and polished look, and makes the most out of the
script’s thinly-written scares, but as a result he’s forgot to add that
great layer of psychological tension which graced the original film.
There’s blood and gore, but then there’s blood, gore and suspense…. You
tell me which one you’d rather have served with your popcorn and large
coke? 2 out
of 5 The Hitcher
Australian
release: 29th March,
2007
Cast: Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Kyle Davis, Neal McDonough, Zachary Knighton
Director: Dave Meyers
Website: Click
here.
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