The Hitcher -- 1986 / 2007 -- R

I thought I'd just tackle both versions together since they have similar strengths and similar weaknesses, so hitting one would be like hitting the other.

I was originally drawn to this film because the 86 version showed up on a list of the scariest movies of all time, and being a sucker for the scary movies, I naturally had to watch it. Ok, on the one hand, I can understand the fear factor. On the other, there should have been a quality requirement to this list. Both films ranked as "ok" on my list of how things are; neither served to blow me away in any fashion.

The 86 version was notably stronger in many respects over the 07 version, and I'm not one to automatically gravitate to the original. For instance, I have always preferred the American Ring to its Japanese daddy (the J-Horror fanatics can stop booing me now!). The use of a single character over a couple gave the suspense factor a few notches that it lost when there were two. After all, two against one is uneven, but one on one is matched and who will win? It also preferred to leave some of the more grotesque imagery out and let our imagination wonder how hideous it looked (and made us lean our heads to try and see better).

The original also let the police stick to the main guy as the killer as opposed to letting the cops know there was someone they did not know: "a third person." This placed the lead in greater danger since it left the cops in the dark, and left us wondering whether they would take him in or kill him, creating yet more threats.

However, let's turn the tables on the 86 version and talk about what 07 did improve. In 86, the love interest was introduced halfway through the film, but in the original, they were a couple from the start. I already stated that the lead being solo was better overall, but being a couple from the beginning created a better bond between the leads for the final showdown. The new one also better illustrated the truck stop, which confused the hell out of me in the original, and instead of ropes (which could have been cut), the bargaining tool was chained up and not going anywhere.

However, since the couple was already together, this necesitated the addition of scenes not in the original, since the original required the couple to meet and learn about each other. This allowed the addition of some scenes that were all shooting and killing as opposed to any building of character, which the film desperately needed.

What do they have in common? Well, there is a hitchhiker named John Ryder who is not a nice fellow, and he hitches a ride with our hero(es) only to show his true colors and threaten to kill them. The original sets this up a lot better, but we are left constantly in the dark as to who this is and why he is so intent on killing our lead(s). It rings back to Duel in its basic construction, though Duel did a lot of things a lot better.

The largest weakness is how John manages to always find our couple, and why the couple was completely unable to escape him. The truck stop plays a pivotal role, but our heroes (in both films) got there on foot and broke in to stay the night leaving no discernable trace of where they were while there. Several places the leads went should have been impossible to tail, but he did. How did John continue to find them? It never explained, and it never made sense. I could understand ID-ing the car along a stretch of road with no where to go (such as the never-ending state highway in Duel), but their roads here could have taken them anywhere. Not only that, but they ended up hiking cross-country. He kept driving. They could have ended up anywhere.

It was overall weak on both films, and contained far too many implausibilities to get enough into it to be afraid of anything. I'm sure it freaked people out about hitchhikers for awhile, but it was not effective at scaring on the spot.