If there was anything the world needed, it was a direct to video sequel
to The Hitcher, made almost 20 years later. Oh, wait, it’s not opposite day. My
bad…
Director: Louis Morneau
Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Jake Busey, Kari Wuhrer
So we start off with something totally different from the original
film: a rainy setting where a car picks up a hitchhiker! Oh wait, it’s still
not opposite day…man I’m bad at this. To be fair, the situation IS pretty
different. It’s actually revealed to be a kidnapped child, and the guy driving
is his kidnapper. The kidnapper gets shot by C. Thomas Howell, who I am
surprised actually returned for this. Take a guess if Rutger Hauer came back or
not…
So yeah, Howell’s character Jim Halsey is now a cop all these years
later. Funny, considering the last interaction he had with the police in the
first movie was when he held one of them up at gunpoint and stole his car. You
would think that would sorta bar one
from entering into the police academy and becoming an officer of the law. Isn’t
it kind of like a church burning black metal musician becoming a Lutheran
minister?
 |
| Oh, maybe he DIDN'T fall too far from the tree after all... |
Either way, Jim kills the kidnapper and then flies away in his plane to
go see his girlfriend Maggie. Yeah, he has a private plane, a little Wright
Bros-esque number that I’m surprised the police department just lets him fly
around to catch criminals in. He actually tells Maggie that yes, he did find that child kidnapper by flying
around in the plane, so I’m not making that part up. This whole thing has a
very carnivalesque superhero feel to it now. Like Jim Halsey is Robin Hood or
something…only he can afford a private plane.
 |
| Yes, I'm so sure we have a reason to be afraid of this ominous tracking shot...I'm sure it's NOT AT ALL a red herring... |
Yeah, this plot point isn’t going to be very important to the film, so
I can just skip it I guess. Maggie makes a huge deal about Jim killing that
kidnapper, and I really don’t get why. I mean yeah, he killed someone; it sucks
by default. But at the same time…he killed a CHILD KIDNAPPER. Possibly a
molester and a sex offender, too; let’s just assume. Why is this such a big
deal? Maggie’s words are “You can’t just go around shooting people all the
time!” I’m sorry, but how is killing ONE man who KIDNAPPED A CHILD the same
thing as “going around shooting people all the time”? Yes, Jim. Listen to your
girlfriend. Please stop killing horrible murderers and child molesters. That’s
just so rude of you.
 |
| I love how they're sexualizing her after she's been working underneath a plane and probably smells like a BP oil spill right now... |
After some dubiously silly and unbelievable acting, Jim decides that
they need to go back to that desert road where the first movie took place to
talk to his friend Sheriff Esteridge, now retired. Esteridge tells him over the
phone that maybe it’s time to come
back and revisit the past, and face his fear…I’m sorry, WHY?! What’s the gain?
To talk to his old buddy about killing that kidnapper? I just…don’t think that
reason is strong enough to justify an entire movie!
But, sigh, they do end up
going, and of course it takes them all of five minutes to find a hitchhiker,
which Maggie insists that they pick up, because a sandstorm is coming. I just
love this character’s sympathies: she’s all for the child molesters and the
hitchhikers! Truly America’s most under-represented, oppressed minorities! Jim is suspicious and has numerous flashbacks to the first movie again.
Which honestly begs the question, why. Why are you watching this? Why not just
go watch the first one again? The flashbacks make it painfully obvious even
this early in that the original will be the better film when this one is over.
So why? Just turn this off now, pop in the 1986 classic The Hitcher and you’ll be
much better off for your time.
So, yeah, the hitchhiker guy is played by Jake Busey, because yeah,
when I think of classic horror villains, I think of Jake Busey right next to
Rutger Hauer from the original. Sure. Keep on living in your fantasy land,
movie. Busey doesn’t seem threatening or creepy like Hauer did in the original,
so it’s more ambiguous for a few minutes. Halsey screams a lot and acts like a
jackass, and kicks Busey’s character out of the car anyway, prompting Maggie to
get all self-righteous again. Why do I get the idea this is the kind of
relationship where she picks out his shirts and socks every morning?
Of course Jake Busey IS the new killer in this film, which is revealed
a few moments later. And honestly, the problems with this compared to the
original are so boldly underlined, it’s practically able to be seen from space.
The original movie worked because it was all so spontaneous and random. Jim was
stranded out in the desert with this guy he just met trying to kill him. He was
just passing through, just driving his rental car across the country. In THIS,
Jim actively seeks out the desert
road again, and so the spontaneity is lost. If a character knows where he’s
going, and intentionally goes, the fear and the surprise just aren’t as great.
In a better movie, maybe this could have worked – maybe if Jim was trying to
hunt down the Hitcher again all these years later and kill him, after hearing of
some similar murders in the same area. But the way it’s done here just feels
contrived and forced.
 |
| "If I show my teeth and look constipated enough, maybe people will be engaged by my character!" |
They are forcing this plot to
happen. How do we get Jim back in the desert years later after he naturally
would move far away? Well, it’s simple, just invent a flimsy excuse and have
him go back! Nothing just comes naturally the way a good plot does – these are
manufactured, doctored thrills forced into being by C-rate writing just to get
to the end of the goddamn script.
Case in point: you remember how the original was relatively fast-paced
and ambiguous as to what the Hitcher was doing? How he kept to the shadows and
only appeared in short bursts here and there to incite violence? How his
framing Jim for murder was understated and didn’t seem too obvious? Well, that’s all out the window here. One of the first things Jim
points out to Maggie is that the Hitcher always tried to frame him for crimes. Well, here that plot point is hammered in until you just don't care. It's totally without subtlety. Busey’s Hitcher makes a wimpy phone call to police misleading
them about Jim and Maggie. He tells the police that Jim and Maggie are
going to kill Esteridge as opposed to
just going to talk to him. When Jim and Maggie get there, of course Busey has
somehow magically just killed them, in really vague and boring ways…certainly
not the masterful suspense set up in the first one when Jim came across the
abandoned family station wagon after Hauer was done with it.
 |
| The first movie's killer killed people and was enigmatic and fearless. This guy is the equivalent of a phone-pranking douchebag with too much time on his hands. Great killer, movie; great killer. |
I’m sorry – I know I’m just bitching about how much lamer this is as
compared to the first one. But it’s just no comparison. This movie is simply a
dumber, less interesting version of the first one. Nothing feels subtle or
mysterious anymore. Everything is boldly defined and spelled out like the
audience is dumb. Oh, is Busey trying to frame Maggie for his own killings?
Please, movie, hammer that fact in until the whole plot just seems completely
neutered and bland.
I guess if I’m going to continue actually summarizing any of this, Jim
gets killed off by Busey from a couple of gunshots and dies in the desert.
Maggie is the main character now and she walks around for a bit and then gets
knocked out by Busey, who puts her in some kind of old water tower that’s about
to fall down. He points out – he actually says it – that the water tower is
about to fall. So, how exactly the hell did he carry a grown woman up it and
put her in without it collapsing? I just love when a movie verbally states its
own plot holes.
 |
| Maybe he can fly now. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. They've already surpassed the original in implausible scenarios and ridiculous kills...might as well just throw all realism to the wind. |
She gets out of that with very, very little suspense, and while the
desert settings are all very nice, I’m just so bored. There’s no danger in
this! Where is the sense for the epic? Where is the fast paced adventure and
high speed explosiveness? Even when the movie does speed up and try its hand at that, it comes off as a cheap
imitation, sluggish and sort of drunk. Like if the first Hitcher got washed up
and fat. Maggie isn’t interesting at all, far away from the fiery performance
C. Thomas Howell gave in the first one, and Busey is just a joke, coming off
more like a college frat boy playing pranks than a menacing, unpredictable
killer.
There’s one scene where he pops up from behind a diner counter like a
Jack in the Box, and then cuts his own finger off and throws it in a pot of
boiling water nearby. Is this a Freddy Krueger movie now? It’s just completely
retarded!
 |
| Eh, still better than The Dream Child. |
The cops arrest Maggie for all of that shit and the Sheriff actually
talks reason, and gives us another big glowing neon sign as to why this sequel
doesn’t work and the original DID work: Maggie has family and friends, and a
job. People back home can verify that she is who she says she is, and that she
has no reason to do any of the crimes Busey is framing her for.
In the original, Jim Halsey was a shifty, slightly rebellious loner
whose only familial contact couldn’t BE reached and had no ID or anything because the Hitcher stole them from him. There was fairly reasonable
suspicion as to his innocence, and the way Hauer's killer character played things, you could see
why Halsey would be under scrutiny. And as it was 1986, the communication fields
were shaky enough as it was – there wasn’t a lot of ways to go check up on any
of his stories. This is 2003. There are ways to PROVE beyond a doubt that this
woman would have NO reason or cause to commit such crimes. Hell, pick up a phone and make a call, you morons! I'm fairly sure her identification wasn't stolen at any point either, which makes this extra stupid. If these cops used
their brains, they would see that the woman in front of them is really not very
suspicious at all, and couldn’t do anything she’s being accused of.
But I guess dumbass small-town cops need a reason to exist, and so they
just ignore all logic and say, yeah, some crazy guy with no background and no
alibi for anything is accusing a well-to-do woman from a civilized place of
gruesome, insane crimes? Must be legit! No reason to actually think and
investigate at all, is there? That stuff’s for nerds!
 |
| "We don't really like using our brains in police work out here. It's just not the true way of the desert cop. We just hate actually thinking about motive and plausibility, and instead just arrest the first person we find without asking questions. Truly we are the greatest cops ever." |
The Sheriff does believe her though. Which could have proved for some
drama, if Busey didn’t kill him two minutes later, in a very unspectacular
manner. What ensues is…
 |
| Okay, I guess this COULD have been cool...but here it's just dull and ridiculous, frankly, and I'm not sure how they managed to make a plane chasing a truck evoke that reaction. |
…proof that the movie just doesn’t give a shit. In their attempt to
one-up the crazy chase scenes from the original, we get a really boring and
implausible scene where Maggie steals a small plane and chases after Busey, who
is in a truck. I guess it’s not the worst ever, but come on. It’s stupid.
We do get one kind of cool scene when Maggie knocks him out and then
ties him between two trucks, like Rutger Hauer did to that girl in the first
one. It’s…a bit silly, yeah, when you consider that neither of these characters
had anything to do with that film, but it does create some atmosphere and is
the only part of this whole mess where I got any tension or anger between these
two.
But of course the stupid police show up, and even though Busey has
killed several of their own now, they still go for Maggie and fire at her,
thinking Busey is innocent. I love how he puts on the innocent act when the
cops arrive, saying that Maggie attacked him for no reason and what not. It’s
practically closer to an 80s Ferris Bueller-esque comedy than a horror film.
What a joke.
 |
| Cue the "wah wah" noise. |
So that’s The Hitcher II. What a bland pile of blandy blandness. I
guess some parts are alright, but really, that’s only because they ride the
success of the original so hard. Most of this is just pointless, as it copies
the original note for note and isn’t near as good. It’s a dumb, vapid flick
that won’t leave an impression on you when it’s done, except for minor
annoyance at how hard it failed to replicate anything that was good about the
original – in fact, a lot of the time it’s like they were actually trying to do
the opposite of what the original did. I guess it IS opposite day.
But this is only a minor offense…a pedestrian annoyance.
Beyond this petty misdemeanor of a film lies a much greater evil; a
primordial and demonic entity that mortal men tremble before…THE REMAKE!
Run for your lives!
Images copyright of their original owners, I do not own any of them.
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