Review: The Hitcher
January 31, 2007 
The Hitcher
Year: 2007
Length: 1:30
Media: Film
Rating from MPAA: R (Restricted)
ID in Amazon.com: B00005JPKF
Cast:
The Hitcher was the first horror movie I went to see in theaters in close to 6 years and I wasn’t disappointed.
Not having seen the 1986 original or it’s 2003 sequel that this is a remake of, I can’t speak to how it was different. But as a movie by itself, it managed to avoid many of the unbelievably stupid actions most characters in horror movies take that get them in trouble… or killed.
The twists and turns kept coming in this film and the pacing seemed to keep everyone in the theater (including me) on the edge of their seats. While you obviously knew that basically every person the collegiate couple of Grace Andrews and Jim Halsey (played by Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton) came in contact with wasn’t going to have a good day, even the way they died seemed creative and helped move the plot along.
All of the main characters’ actions seemed fairly believable given the situation presented in the film, even if you knew the couple was making one wrong decision after another. Neal McDonough presented a no-nonsense, yet ultimately caring state trooper in Lieutenant Esteridge, who was one of the only policemen to actually do any investigating. And Sean Bean played John Ryder, the maniacal hitchhiker that was able to disguise himself as a calm, trustworthy guy, complete with a fake wedding ring to make his victims feel secure with a terrifying presence… and great aim.
The really only flimsy character in the entire film was the gas station attendant who was presented as being so over-the-top lame, that it was immediately unrealistic. Sure, someone working in such a deserted area might come off creepy and could possibly own donkeys, but there’s no way he would have said any of the dialogue that came out of the character’s mouth. Not to mention that the filmmakers had to give him a lazy eye that was supposedly caused by him being kicked in the face by one of the aforementioned donkeys. Give us a break.
The movie pretty much ended how you would expect a horror movie to end. And the ending was pretty satisfying, despite being over-dramatic.
One other thing worth noting is the deliberate foreshadowing at the beginning of the film, which involved a noticeably CGI jack rabbit getting run over, a less-noticeably CGI dragonfly meeting the couple’s windshield with a splat, and a heads-up penny Zachary Knighton’s character finds on the ground. None of it was really necessary to the plot, but at least the rabbit roadkill elicited some laughter from the crowd and broke some of the tension at the beginning of the movie.
The Hitcher could have been a little better, but definitely could have been much, much worse.
Tags: hitcher movie sophia+bush horror thriller hitchhiker scary remake sequel zachary+knighton neal+mcdonough sean+bean
