The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting

(2003) **

Oh, well. This one really had nowhere to do but down, since the first one was such a perfectly complete story. Poor C. Thomas Howell is revising his Jim Halsey role from The Hitcher, except he's all growed up and he's a police man now. The story opens with a round of Dirty Harry justice that seems completely justified (kid saved, kidnapper dead), but Jim gets fired for it anyway. When he delivers the bad news to his girlfriend Kari Wuhrer, she delivers the worst bit of Horrorthon advice I've ever heard: "Honey, you can't just go around shootin' people 'cause they're wacko, you know?"



To his credit, C. Tom does a decent job portraying somebody still torn apart by past trauma. Taking the advice of retired Captain Esteridge (the one reasonable police officer in the first movie, and Jim's "reason I became a cop"), he decides revisiting the site of his old nightmare and confronting his fears might be a good idea. It isn't.

Because very shortly after Jim's return, Kari forces his hand and they pick up hitchhiker Jake Busey in the middle of a sandstorm. After some dialogue in which Jake sports some mild spookiness but annoyingly never turns into Rutger Hauer from 1986, Jim flips out and kicks him out of the car at gunpoint.


Okay, it's a little mean, but check out the "before" pic of C Tom from the original:


Aww, so cute. Anyway, it isn't long before Kari's screaming "I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Jim!" and they're dodging the crazy from supposedly the same evil presence that Rutger portrayed. "He didn't look like that, but that's him" says Jim. Pfff. Nice try, movie.

Before too long Jim plays human shield and the action kicks over to Kari, who endures a far less original and entertaining cat-and-mouse game with psycho Busey. At one point she loses consciousness and wakes up in...the structurally unsound water tower! For real. She has to kick her way out and climb down before it falls over. Look in your books under Not Scary, class.

One of the main drags of this flick is the duddingly boring way they carry over the whole "he's framing you for his murders!" shtick. In the original it was almost an afterthought, just part of the maelstrom of death and chaos surrounding this mysterious stranger. In this one it's right up in your grill, like when Kari slips on blood and happens to wrap her fingerprints all over the protruding knife handle as she falls on the corpse. Or when New Hitcher lops off one of his own fingers so that his story will sound more credible; instead of indifferent silence, this incarnation drawls off an irritating, persecuted story for the police. And the viewer is in danger of repeated forehead-slapping injuries watching these dumb cops, with the usual dubious side-benefit: you really can't feel too bad when they get killed.

Considering how long it took me to get here and how mid-range the movies turned out to be, I am not at this time considering another actor-related mini film festival for future Horrorthons. I don't blame Kari, however; she actually does a fairly decent job in these B-class offerings. I think I spotted a possible answer to why she hasn't made it further in the industry. I think it's her nose.


Don't get me wrong, I think she's attractive and everything, and I don't want to be mean or sound like I'm championing cosmetic surgery. But stardom is elusive, and based on factors like these. While it was good to reacquaint myself with Kari Wuhrer's big brown eyes, the center of her face just lacked the kind of distinction that gets you the full star package. The first movie with her that I watched was Anaconda, and I noticed it right away. It's as plain as the...well....