The Hitcher

The Hitcher (1986) Second Sight Films 2NDBR4227/8/9 Cert: 15

From Second Sight Films comes the hell-for-leather 80’s road slasher ‘The Hitcher’, the directorial feature debut of Robert Harmon in newly remastered, limited edition box set and standard 4K UHD/BluRay to rekindle the fires of the gorehounds among you.

Taking place almost entirely on the dusty, oppressive interstate highways of the USA’s Mid-West and its sparse, understaffed truck stops, the plot is reminiscent of a particularly gory, unhinged urban legend.

Young Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is driving across Texas bound for California, where he will deliver the car with which he has been entrusted. Picking up hitch hiker Jim Ryder along the way (the great Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner, Sin City), he quickly discovers that the intense, taciturn man sat in the passenger seat is a psychopath. Attempts to engage the stranger in conversation are met with riddle-like responses and sardonic laughter, with a flick knife being flashed to chilling effect.

Noticing that the passenger door is ajar, our driver manages to kick the hitcher out and leaves him lying in the road. It isn’t the last our driver sees of him. Imagine Halsey’s horror on seeing a family pickup going past with the hitcher hugging a child and soft toy in the back seat, snickering!

Halsey’s attempts to summon help are frustrated by the almost inevitable locked-up truck stops and broken public phones and his narrow escape from a Hitchcockian demise on a garage forecourt soaked in spilt petrol is a deft touch to an old suspense trick.

Halsey’s arrival at an out of hours truck stop and the introduction of a sympathetic waitress (Jennifer Jason Leigh (Single White Female, The Hateful Eight) brings some relief from his relentless, violent pursuit and she cooks him a burger and fries as he freshens up in the men’s bathroom. A telephone call to report the day’s scarcely believable events brings the Police and Halsey finds himself chief suspect for the murder spree being enacted on the highways. A tense, browbeating interrogation leaves Halsey feeling that he is being scapegoated and he retires dejected to his cell for the night. 

The pace is not slacking; Halsey wakes to discover his cell door ajar, the Police officers dead and strewn around like broken dolls and his escape route practically signposted for him. The mysterious and terrifying hitcher at work again. High speed chases with vehicles overturning like gaming pieces angrily flung to the floor by a sore loser follow and our driver seems to be on a sure date with death at the hands of his pursuer, with whom he seems to be sharing a fate.

‘The Hitcher’ has plenty more surprises and twists, all delivered at a furious, gut-wrenching pace as our young delivery driver tries to survive on the road and make whatever sense he can of the terrible events he is experiencing. The grim fate of those he meets is dished out cold and there’s even a suggestion of how our knife happy hitcher may have become the murderous force of evil he is.

Also included in the limited edition set is collector’s package with new artwork and a 200 page hardback book. All editions feature much archive material, two short films and much more.

Pre-Order available from 30^th September.

Scenester

3/9/24

Buy here: https://secondsightfilms.co.uk/products/the-hitcher-blu-ray-pre-order-available-september-30th