Hitcher, el asesino de la carretera

The Hitcher is a marvelous thriller and Rutger Hauer is truly scary as hell. He is undoubtedly one of the best villains in cinematic history. The game that Hauer and C. Thomas Howell play out makes for a great way to spend an hour and a half of your life. You can't help but feel sorry for Howell as he can never escape the madman. Hauer has zero motive and that makes him all the more evil. And how he always finds Howell is something that is unnerving and unexplainable. It's like their paths were meant to cross somewhere out in in the desert. Eric Red's script leaves nothing to be desired. The scene where Howell is eating french fries is one of the most unforgettable in horror history. And so is the event that leads to the capture of Hauer. The end is fantastic and it's something that you want to do through the entire movie. It will definitely make you think twice before picking up hitchhikers. If you enjoyed The Hitcher, Check out Hitch-Hike (with David Hess) and Duel.

Rutger Hauer owns The Hitcher. He hitches a ride with C Thomas Howell and he soon regrets his goodwill. People are killed along the way and the good Samaritan finds himself in deep doo doo. JJ Leigh appears as a waitress who gets tied up with the events. Howell spirals into Dante's Inferno with cops on the chase. Although farfetched I was entertained by the movie.

One wonders if the filmmakers knew what kind of a film they wanted to make. This movie starts out promising, with C. Thomas Howell as a kid driving across the great dusty southwest (beautifully and desolately photographed and eerie in a Stephen King-esque sort of way) on his way to California, only to be inexplicably pursued by a homicidal maniac, played with cold glee by the chilly-eyed Rutger Hauer. There is a promise here of a psychological thriller a la Hitchcock, with Hauer seeming to have a near-supernatural and truly menacing presence. There is something inhuman and demonic about him, though it's hard to put your finger on precisely what. The relationship (yes, one can call it that) that develops between Hauer and Howell is interesting and deeply disturbing. Behind the enmity, they seem to have some truly dysfunctional need for each other, which makes the cat-and-mouse game all the more suspenseful. Unfortunately, somewhere around the middle of the movie, it degenerates into just another shoot-em-up action flick and Hauer's character seems silly rather than demonic, while Howell is just annoying. After about a half hour of this, I just wanted both of them to die. I didn't care anymore. Had the filmmakers known how to write (and direct) a satisfying, appropriate conclusion to the very suspenseful first half, this could have been a great movie. Instead, it falls on its face--and is all the more disappointing because we expected something better.

Starring everybody's favourite Dutchman, Rutger Hauer, this superb road movie thriller is tense, thrilling and superbly atmospheric.

The first scene between the Hitcher and Jim Holsey was superb, Rutger puts in a chilling performance. Mr Hauer has a reputation for pulling off some memorable bad guy performances, namely this, Blade runner and Nighthawks, but this is my favourite of his performances. The lines he has were brilliant. The pacing of the film was very good and apart from Rutger stealing the show the other actors were good. Jennifer Jason Leigh was good in her small role and of course C Thomas Howell in the lead does a good job. Overall this gets a 9/10 from me.

A normal ordinary guy picks up a stranger in the middle of nowhere so that he could drive awake. Little does he know that he's going into a road trip from hell...

Rutger Hauer give what I think is his best performance. Sure, there was that menacing Replicant in Blade Runner, but this one overshoots it by a long shot. He delivers a performance so good, that you'll find it difficult to question whether his character is believable or unbelievable.

C. Thomas Howell, one one of the kids in Steven Spielberg's ET, plays the protagonist. Here, he faces every driver's worst nightmare imaginable, and he delivers it with realism. Howell also demonstrates how an ordinary teenager can change into a helpless being who is caught between a psychopathic game of cat-and-mouse set by a brutal man hell-bent on killing him.

The nice New Mexico cinematography of which the film was filmed and set gives tranquility to the picture and makes the film looks good while delivering the thrills. Strongly supporting this topic is composer Mark Isham's gritty yet beautiful score. It;s just perfect for this kind of movie.

The action sequences are handled very nicely here. We got a petrol station blowing up, an intense police car chase, and one of the greatest endings in cinematic history. Period.

The Hitcher (1986) is one of the first films I have ever watched, and I still cherish it to this day. The 2007 remake, or rather, reDO, is a shallow and uninspiring music-videoish piece of crud that will only be liked by the MTV generation, but never the fans of the original. Why was it remade, we will never know.

Overall, it is an excellent movie and one of the best thrillers ever made. Pick this one up, guys, it's worth it.

8/10