The Hitcher captures the unnecessarily sinister and sadistic nature of its titular character, a man on the ultimate quest of robbing someone of their innocence by getting them to experience the same high from killing as he does. There is this rather interesting storyline, and then a generic teen horror Spring Break storyline operating seamlessly throughout the film. Regrettably, the latter almost always takes the front seat in screen time as Sean Bean is presented to us rather sparsely while the dumb college couple inhabit nearly every scene with their fumbling presence.
Of course, as far as casting is concerned, bubbly Sophia Bush in all of her Abercrombie mini-skirt cuteness is prime meat for Hollywood. Sean Bean is something of a rentable bad guy in mainstream film but he typically plays calculating villains or traitors rather than full on psychos as opposed to Rutger Hauer from the original Hitcher who offered onslaughts of getting his freak on. For this reason, Bean is a bit of an unconventional choice for the role of John Ryder. Nevertheless, and in spite of struggling with an American accent, he mostly delivers.
The Hitcher (2007) is a film that greatly prefers climaxes to continuity, and repeatedly sets itself up in impossibly clichéd horror situations to milk every premise its worth of chills and thrills. In under barely 83 minutes, it is far too short to fully explore all that it attempts, be it foreshadowing, Ryder's psychotic torture or the college couple's fear. It feels very rushed as director Dave Meyers frantically seems to tick off each teen slasher cliché off the formula, and in the end we have a poor man's buffet of horror goodies, the kind you'd find in gas stations.
It gets flat-out ridiculous when John Ryder is trying to frame Grace and Jim for his killings and of course they do the wrongest of things to deal with it: start blaming each other, split up in dark alleys, steal guns and just about everything to prompt suspicion from the local police (who, too, do everything wrong to deal with Ryder). The Hitcher never gains momentum (probably because it's too short) and its flat, linear narrative and generic approach to every component of film-making ultimately pave the way for its downfall.
5 out of 10
Of course, as far as casting is concerned, bubbly Sophia Bush in all of her Abercrombie mini-skirt cuteness is prime meat for Hollywood. Sean Bean is something of a rentable bad guy in mainstream film but he typically plays calculating villains or traitors rather than full on psychos as opposed to Rutger Hauer from the original Hitcher who offered onslaughts of getting his freak on. For this reason, Bean is a bit of an unconventional choice for the role of John Ryder. Nevertheless, and in spite of struggling with an American accent, he mostly delivers.
The Hitcher (2007) is a film that greatly prefers climaxes to continuity, and repeatedly sets itself up in impossibly clichéd horror situations to milk every premise its worth of chills and thrills. In under barely 83 minutes, it is far too short to fully explore all that it attempts, be it foreshadowing, Ryder's psychotic torture or the college couple's fear. It feels very rushed as director Dave Meyers frantically seems to tick off each teen slasher cliché off the formula, and in the end we have a poor man's buffet of horror goodies, the kind you'd find in gas stations.
It gets flat-out ridiculous when John Ryder is trying to frame Grace and Jim for his killings and of course they do the wrongest of things to deal with it: start blaming each other, split up in dark alleys, steal guns and just about everything to prompt suspicion from the local police (who, too, do everything wrong to deal with Ryder). The Hitcher never gains momentum (probably because it's too short) and its flat, linear narrative and generic approach to every component of film-making ultimately pave the way for its downfall.
5 out of 10