DBD Critic's Corner - Remakes Are Fun Edition!

[TJL]

The Hitcher (2007)

The 1986 road thriller The Hitcher was a creepy cat and mouse game starring Dutch actor Rutger Hauer as a psycho who torments 80’s movie staple C. Thomas Howell along the sun baked and blood caked highways of the Southwest.

To sum up this movie as quickly as possible, Howell picks up Hauer on the road, Hauer threatens Howell, Howell escapes Hauer, Hauer stalks Howell who is framed for all the killings Hauer commits, Howell and Hauer have a violent showdown and that’s why we don’t pick up hitchhikers.

Yeah, yeah, Motion Picture Industry, we got it the first time…picking up hitchhikers is bad.

All strangers wandering the road on a dark and stormy night are homicidal maniacs, blah blah blah…

Message received loud and clear! Ten four good buddy, over and out…

In case you didn’t get the message of the original Hitcher nearly two decades Hollywood decided to remake the Hitcher earlier this year, in case this new generation with their iPhones and their zwinkeys never learned every creepy stranger in a trenchcoat we offer a ride to on a deserted New Mexico highway will cut us up into bite sized pieces before we can say “so where you heading?”

The 2007 remake of The Hitcher pretty much follows the original note for note, only this time two young actors are called in to fill C. Thomas Howell’s Nike high tops.
Nubile chicky Sophia Bush (TV’s One Tree Hill) and Zachary Knighton (never heard of him) play a happy as can be couple on their way to spring break who decide living is no fun at all when they agree to give scary loner John Ryder (Sean Bean, who has been in a bunch of movies) while gassing up at the Quik-E-Mart.
Sophia and Zach whimper their way across country as crazy John manages to be one step ahead and behind them, slaughtering everyone these stupid kids talk to while convincing the authorities a 90-pound sorority chick and her greasy haired beau are killing every cop south of the Canadian border.
Like the original movie, police cars flip through the air and explode with the slightest nudge, an eighteen-wheeler is used in a very interesting way, and every single roadside diner has a rusty sign that squeaks in the wind. Oh, and picking up hitchhikers is bad.

Thank you so much for teaching us that valuable lesson. Again!

Seriously, How stupid do you movie people think we are? Picking up a scary hitchhiker is the third most stupid thing a movie character can do!

Number two is spending a weekend at the abandoned Summer Camp where five thousand kids have been killed in the last 25 years. You might as well chop your own head off with a machete before you set up your tent.

The number one stupid thing a movie character can do is having Meg Ryan for a girlfriend.
Sure, you’re an affable bastard with a good job and all the love a decent caring man can offer, but nooooooooo, that isn’t enough for little Miss Perkynose!
Only Tom freaking Hanks will make her life complete!

Man!

What were we talking about?