By BETSY PICKLE
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Back when scary movies meant real scares and not just overly art-directed gore, there was a movie called "The Hitcher" that turned a generation off the practice of giving rides to strangers.
Now it's 21 years later, and the people who watched "The Hitcher" have children of their own who have no familiarity with that film and whose idea of a scary movie is anything that bleeds.
The new version of "The Hitcher" isn't as bad as many of the films lumped into the horror/suspense category these days, but it also wasn't necessary. The original is far superior in every way.
In fact, the only reason the new "Hitcher" exists is to cook up some ersatz girl power with the addition of "One Tree Hill" star Sophia Bush. It's certainly no stretch to believe that a waif wearing a micro-miniskirt could pick up a big ol' gun and hold her own against a psychopathic mass murderer who's handy with firearms, knives and his hands. You go, skinny girlfriend.
In "The Hitcher," Grace (Bush) and her college boyfriend, Jim (Zachary Knighton), set off for spring-break fun at Lake Havasu. Taking the back roads through New Mexico in Jim's classic Olds 442, they drive late into the night.
Jim, distracted by Grace's beauty, nearly runs down a man standing in the road by a broken-down car. The man seems kind of creepy, so Grace convinces Jim to drive on without offering help. Bad karma, or good sense?
While Grace and Jim are at a gas station, the man from the incident shows up. John Ryder (Sean Bean) can't get his car towed till the next day, so he asks Jim for a ride to a motel. Along the way, Ryder reveals that he's not simply a man with car trouble. He breaks Jim's cell phone and pulls a knife, but the kids manage to push him out of the car.
The next day, Grace and Jim see Ryder in the back of a family's station wagon. They try but fail to warn the doomed family, and soon they are caught up in Ryder's sadistic killing spree, which seems designed to make them look guilty.
Written by Eric Red (who penned the original), Jake Wade Wall and Eric Bernt, "The Hitcher" is a streamlined version of the 1986 film starring Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell. It ditches plot, character development and interesting characters in general in favor of their fashion-model equivalents.
Grace and Jim are nonentities, and the fact that they're on spring break practically makes them legitimate targets for a killer. Bean is ominous enough, but his actions are too mysterious to qualify as evil genius. Neal McDonough comes in belatedly as a state trooper chief who doesn't figure out quite enough.
Directed by Dave Meyers, a video veteran, "The Hitcher" has some brutal jumps. But it feels like it's going through the motions rather than trying to give viewers nightmares.
Rated R for strong bloody violence, terror and language.
Two and a half stars (out of five).
