Hitcher

This is just a perfectly executed 80s action/thriller/horror film. Rutger Hauer owns his role and is genuinely terrifying. Ignore the bad reviews, this is a masterpiece!

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.

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.

I saw this back in the 80's when home video was the done thing and thought it great. I remember others spoke highly of it too so I don't know why Wikipedia only mentions the bad reviews it got back in the day. Anyhow, I saw for a second time recently and I think it stands up pretty well over the past 35 years. Very good performances, especially by C Thomas Howell who was only young back then. The atmosphere is creepy from start to finish and although some events seem unbelievable, well hell so what? That's why we watch movies - to see things that seem unbelievable.

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