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Life & Arts

Graphic update of 'Hitcher' disappoints

by JAKE HAMILTON
The Daily Cougar

Let's just get something straight: Not all horror movies are trash. For that matter, not all remakes are trash, either.

The recent trend of horror movies, nicknamed the "death-sploitation" generation, has become a phenomenon. Films such as Saw and Hostel are so popular that even Wes Craven reworked one of his finest achievements, The Hills Have Eyes, to fit the graphic torture requirements of today's horror films.

So when a remake of the 1986 horror thriller The Hitcher slid into theaters, it didn't disappoint simply because it was a terrible remake of a horror movie; it disappointed because it didn't have to be a terrible remake of a horror movie.

  In the film, John Ryder (played by Sean Bean in the remake) just needs a ride. An archetypal young, attractive couple driving into New Mexico passes him up and leaves him soaking in the rain, only to run into him later on down the road at a gas station. Trying to rid themselves of guilt, the couple decides to give him a ride. Ryder, of course, turns out to be a twisted fiend intent on setting the young couple up for multiple murders before he finally finishes them.

It's not right to try to tear the remake by saying it destroyed a classic. The 1986 original was not the best of the horror genre, but like many films of that era, there was a unsettling and grotesque originality to it that is lost in today's horror films. The remake's plot stays close enough to that of the original but loses anything that gave the original a sense of terror. The remake is far more violent, which must be to make up for the fact that it has nothing else going for it.

As with any horror film, there a suspension of disbelief is required. Still, there comes a point when inconceivable plot turns and cliches overpower the potential of a decent horror movie. Running out of gas, no signal for the cell phone, the uncanny ability to walk out of a car after it's blown into the sky -- in a post-Scream world, audiences are accustomed to these techniques, and if a horror film such as The Hitcher can't recognize that, it will fail miserably.

And sadly enough, it does fail.

The film often gives several hints that there's a better movie hidden somewhere within it, often because of Bean's performance. It's suggested that a deeper motive lies behind Ryder's homicidal behavior. 

But the film ends without a glimpse behind the mind of this madman, and we're given no motive for his slaughter-fest other than the fact that he simply enjoys the rush of the kill. 

Bean does his best to give an extra dimension to this otherwise paper-thin character but doesn't have much to work with. Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton are more than forgettable as the killer's helpless victims.

  The Hitcher is a low-grade horror movie that makes it harder on critics trying to defend the horror genre. Still, original films like The Descent or this year's Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez double horror flick Grindhouse occasionally manage to break into the mainstream and offer a bit of hope.

  But The Hitcher should be treated like nothing more than a shady person on the side of the highway -- passed as quickly as possible with a prayer that you won't meet it again later on down the road. 

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