DVD Release
With the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street hitting the big screens it seems that all the bemoaning of remakes starts afresh once more. I personally find it hard to get upset about them any more. They won’t affect how I feel about the original movie and believe it or not there have been some good remakes. I always head into a movie hoping for the best, and it pisses me off when I read about people going to see a remake with their minds already made up that they will hate it. Why spend your money on it? Why instead just boycott the bloody thing? The dollar is the bottom line, and whilst the dollars flood in the studios will keep making them.
As I said there have been good remakes. There have also been bad remakes. Just the same as there are good and bad original flicks. Unfortunately The Hitcher falls into the bad movie category, not just a bad remake it is a bad movie. I caught it at the theater, being as though I am a fan of original 1986 movie as well as being a fan of Sean Bean. I wasn’t overly impressed with it then and alas it hasn’t aged at all well over the past couple of years.
The plot is straightforward with a sexy young couple driving across New Mexico who end up picking up a shady looking character that goes batshit crazy on them. He carves up folk, frames them and generally makes their lives hell. Now this sounds like it could make a really good movie. Oh yes, they did about 20 odd years ago. What you have hear though is a soulless train wreck that manages not to build any tension, but instead throwing in a few gory scenes and other scenes taken straight from the original movie.
The characters here are bland to say the least, with only Sean Bean and Neal McDonough as Lt. Esteridge putting in decent performances. The scenery was also gorgeous, but this movie lacked any heart. If you don’t feel anything for the victims you aren’t going to care what happens to them and this is very much the case with this movie. The makers of this film obviously went for the crash bang wallop approach but totally forgot to add any tension.
If you were unaware that this was a remake I could possibly recommend it, but the fact remains that it still isn’t a very good movie.
