(1986) *****Wow. I knew this one was good, but I'd really forgotten how good. I wasn't even going to watch it until I was at the video store and spotted the sequel, which stars none other than Kari Wuhrer. After wading through six Hellraisers and three Prophecies to get to Kari, of course I was gonna watch the first Hitcher first. I'm like that.
During the era of his teen heartthrobdom, C. Thomas Howell plays nice kid Jim Halsey, hired to drive some guy's car to California. After nearly dozing off and killing himself one night in the middle of the Texas desert, he decides picking up a hitchhiker so he'll have someone to talk to is a good idea. It isn't.
Enter Rutger Hauer, who delivers a stunning performance as John Ryder, a mysterious, car-hopping angel of death. Only in Blade Runner does this actor match the ruthless, sexy menace that he pulls off here. After some increasingly unsettling conversation, he puts a knife to Jim's throat, taunting him with his cool craziness until our hero sees the passenger door is ajar and pushes Ryder out. Unfortunately, that's just the beginning.
What follows is one of the best drawn-out mind fucks ever put on screen. From that point on Ryder targets Jim, not as the victim of his homicidal urge, but as witness to it. As Jim tries to gain control of the situation it spills out into a full-blown nightmare; soon he's got the trigger-happy Texas police convinced he's the murderer. Every time the things seem to be settling down, Ryder emerges from the shadows and spins things further out of control.
The Hitcher is one of those great 80's flicks that comes with a heavy coating of style and works beautifully because of it. The cinematography takes full advantage of the lonely, evocative desert landscape and the slick, moody soundtrack is perfectly matched.
It's never clear if John Ryder is a crazy loner or some supernatural force, although I did spot a clue to his motives this time: for whatever reason, he's picked Jim Halsey to be his executioner. He says it in the first scene, when Jim, knife to his throat, tearfully begs "what do you want?" Ryder answers "I want you to stop me." There are definite sexual overtones to Ryder's fixation, which makes it all the more profound -- as he sees it, nobody even exists in this game except Jim and himself. At one point when Ryder's capture is assured, Jim says "they'll catch you." Rutger Hauer delivers a dismissive "yeah" with such contempt you could believe he's the devil himself.
I'd recommend The Hitcher to anyone reading this; you need to see it if you never have, and if you haven't recently you should give it another look. I think this may have only been the second time I've ever watched this, and it completely blew me away.
2 comments:
Interesting. I did see this way back when, enough to remember Rutger being creeeeeepy.
I also kind of feel like this is one of the first movies when I was surprised that they killed someone that I hadn't expected.
See, exactly! I've always admired this movie.
The first time I saw it, I tried to diagram the plot from memory since I was so impressed with the structure. (I should have been working on my novel but I was really good at procrastinating and calling it "research.") (Of course, I never do stuff like that now.)
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