The Hitcher

The original 1986 The Hitcher—the tale of a maniacal wanderer who torments a naïve young man driving through the southwest—worked as a gripping shocker, but also conveyed the disturbing suggestion that the demonic villain might actually be a hallucinatory projection of the driver's disturbed personality. Filmmaker Dave Meyers' remake not only dispenses with the earlier film's intriguing psychological subtext, but doesn't even get the surface thriller elements right. Here, the setup features a couple (Zachary Knighton and Sophia Bush) being plagued by the hitchhiker (Sean Bean), immediately transforming the film into something far more conventional. And it makes the female the dominant partner, so that when you see the heroine in her short shorts brandishing a pump-action rifle while striding forward in slow-mo at the close, it kind of feels like a parody of a horror-movie cliché. This Hitcher compounds its mistakes by being more literal and “realistic”—explaining what the first film left elliptical (thereby dissipating the air of moody fatalism))—and adopting a more straightforward madman-on-the-loose formula. To be sure, the explosions and car crashes are bigger this time around, but that doesn't necessarily make for a better film. Not recommended. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include eight deleted scenes (one of which is an “End of the Road” alternate ending—totaling 23 minutes), a 13-minute “Dead End” behind-the-scenes featurette, an 11-minute “Fuel Your Fear” making-of featurette, 10 minutes of “Road Kill: The Ultimate Car Crash” behind-the-scenes car stunt segments, four minutes of “Chronicles of a Killer” mock news clips, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a pointless remake.] (F. Swietek)