A DVD REVIEW FOR DEAN MARTIN AND FANS: THE HITCHER (HBO Home Video)

[Lexmark3200]

".......because I cut off his legs......and his arms.....and his head......and I'm gonna do the same to you........"
-Rutger Hauer, The Hitcher

After one of our most distinguished members in here, Mr. Dean Martin, mentioned this 80's gem of a horror/thriller originally released by HBO for HBO in another thread, it IMMEDIATELY made me want to take the disc off my shelf to watch because this creepy little picture has become an underground classic ever since leaving the cable airwaves; if I am not mistaken, there MAY be a special edition of some kind in the works, but I need to confirm this with my people over at The Digital Bits.com. And so I promised Mr. Dean Martin an official review of the DVD, and here it is.....

Let me get this off my chest before I begin the review......this has to be one of the WORST --- IF NOT THE WORST --- DVD transfers audio and video wise in the history of DVD releases, but I will get more into that under the specifications sections. THIS IS AN AWFUL presentation of a film that deserves MUCH better treatment considering its fan base --- and trust me, its pretty large for such an "undergound" originally-made-for-cable motion picture.

I was hooked from the first time I saw The Hitcher broadacast on HBO; there is something about this film that just grabs you, and although there is not much going on plot wise and there are a million things you are asking yourself while youre watching this (like WHY the demented hitchhiker picks on this individual kid to torment with no reason) and the simple, right-to-the-point abrupt ending --- this film has stood the test of time and attracted an underground fan base much like some of John Carpenter's work does. Its not too long in length, moves fast and keeps you on the edge of your seat --- everything a thriller should do --- and then there's Rutger Hauer, who is just out of his mind in this role --- a role perfect for him as such an underrated actor.

C. Thomas Howell plays Jim Halsey, a fairly young man driving a 1977 Cadillac Eldorado from Chicago to California for a "Drive Away" company. As he drives through the rainy night somewhere in Texas in the beginning of the film, he falls asleep at the wheel and almost crashes into a tractor trailer coming straight for him. Snapping back awake, Howell does anything he can to now stay awake, including opening his window and putting the radio on. As he drives, he sees a figure in the dark up ahead.....a hitchhiker with his thumb in the air. As he pulls over to pick him up, you KNOW where this film is headed, and it just makes such a simple statement: never pick up a stranger. As Rutger Hauer, the lone hitcher, gets into Howell's Cadillac, Howell mumbles "my mother told me never to do this....."

As he drives off, Howell introduces himself to Hauer, who introduces himself as "John Ryder" but there is something off with Hauer's character and we can already tell he is a demented psycho of some kind. He wont answer any of Howell's questions about where he is going, and it is not until Howell notices a car pulled off to the side and Hauer's hand slams down on Howell's knee to accelerate his car past the pulled over car , that Howell knows something is wrong with this guy......he pulls over and tells Hauer to get out, but Hauer insists that Howell keep driving because he "ran out of gas" and simply needs a gas station. Feeling a little more at ease, Howell keeps driving until a strange conversation is begun with Hauer and him, where Hauer admits to killing the guy in the pulled over car before Howell picks him up (see the quote above). At this point, Howell is scared senseless because he knows he has picked up a maniac; after passing a construction stop point, Hauer puts a knife to Howell's lower eye lid and hisses "Do you wanna know what happens to an eyeball after its been punctured? Do you have any idea how much blood jets out of a guy's neck after this throat's been slit?" As Howell begins to cry and plead with Hauer to tell him "what he wants," Hauer replies "I want you to say three words for me......say.......I wanna die....." Howell, at the end of this scene, ends up throwing Hauer out of the car because his passenger side door wasnt closed all the way, and he manages to shove him out of the car and onto the road, speeding away from the crazy hitchhiker. But Howell's problems are ONLY beginning.

As Howell continues on his car trip through the long Texas desert, a station wagon with a family in it passes him and to his utter terror, he sees Hauer alive and well in the backseat of the car with a couple's children......as he zooms up to be side and side with the station wagon, screaming at the couple to get him out of their car, he collides with a tour bus coming the other way.......after leaving the scene of the accident, Howell goes down the road a bit to find the family's station wagon pulled over and their bleeding dead bodies inside.....Hauer killed them, too.

At this point, the film gets you so crazy and pissed off at Hauer's character because he keeps popping up to confront Howell everywhere he goes no matter where he seems to go --- he is also framed by Hauer for comitting all the murders, and Howell is arrested by the Sheriff's department of this one-horse Texas town after he makes a call from Jennifer Jason Leigh's diner to the cops explaning that it was this hitchhiker doing the killings --- but Hauer has beat him to the phone and framed him for the murders. Howell ends up getting thrown in a jail cell but eventually finds all the cops in the precinct dead --- killed by Hauer again just to frame Howell --- and now all the state of Texas' law enforcement is after Howell who is on the run with no choice and no proof that he didnt kill any of these people. Whats disturbing about this picture is the fact that we NEVER find out why Hauer is doing this to Howell --- where in films like Phone Booth, we learn that Keiffer Sutherland's psycho sniper character goes after people who he feels need to "socially redeem" themselves (and some of these Wall Street types do), we dont really know --- or ever find out for that matter --- why Hauer is stalking and framing Howell in particular; thats what made the film so creepy......this twisted hitchhiker just picks a random kid picking him up in the rain to terrorize. There is even a scene that confirms what I just said, when Howell is sitting alone in a booth in the corner of a truck stop diner, and Hauer walks in and sits opposite him......when Howell pleads with him to tell him "why he is doing this to him" Hauer simply says "you're a smart kid......figure it out......" But there IS no reason ever revealed to us.

There are some memorable scenes of this picture to fans, such as when Hauer abducts Jennifer Jason Leigh from a motel room she was sharing with Howell and ties her up between the cab of a tractor trailer and the trailer itself, and if the cops shoot him, his foot comes off the brake and the truck will roll and cut the girl in half; there is also a memorable scene (which Dean Martin mentioned in another thread when he mentioned this film which gave me the inspiration to review it) when Howell is eating a cheeseburger and fries in Leigh's diner when suddenly, instead of holding a french fry, he is holding a human finger somehow put in there by Hauer; its a pretty shocking, memorable scene. No matter where he seems to go or what he seems to do, Howell cannot get away from this psycho hitchhiker --- much like how the salesman couldnt get away from the psycho truck driver in Steven Spielberg's Duel.

The film concludes rather abruptly --- but refreshingly simple and to the point, which is often missing in convoluted plots of today's cinema --- with the cops catching and arresting Hauer, but with him escaping (which is never shown how he did it) from the police transport bus, only to find Howell right behind him in close persuit in a stolen Sheriff truck --- Hauer jumps right through Howell's windshield, in which, in turn, Howell slams on the brakes, sending Hauer through the broken windshield and flying onto the ground in front of the now-stopped truck. Believe it or NOT, (yeah right) Hauer picks himself off the ground and begins firing shotgun blasts at Howell who is ducking in the Sheriff's truck because now the engine wont start (of course); Howell eventually gets the truck started and drives it straight into Hauer, sending his body flying twenty feet in the air and dropping SLAM on the ground.......WE all know Hauer isnt dead, but Howell thinks he is, from the impact of being thrown out of the truck and now the impact of being hit BY the truck, and in the film's final brilliant scene, Howell begins walking away with a rifle in his hand from Hauer's limp body, when suddenly Hauer gets up (something tells me they stole a little bit of this from the end of John Carpenter's Halloween) and Howell turns to blast him away with multiple shotgun hits --- and the film ends as simple as that. No Jason Voorhees-like getting-up zombie behavior or anything like that from Hauer; the man he tormented through this whole film finally gets the last word and deadly revenge on this twisted hitchhiker of whom we never discover WHY he was doing this specifically to Howell. And I believe there was something to be said with regard to Hauer's character in this film, but this is my personal take on it.......I believe Hauer's twisted hitcher character had some kind of strange death wish, and just left it up to Howell to take care of this for him. Watch the film and you'll know what I mean.

This title was EXTREMELY difficult to find on DVD for a very long time, and I can remember an ex of mine at the time, last time I was living in Vegas, finding the disc for me somewhere because she knew I liked it and buying for me as a surpise. I was thrilled, because Ive always been a fan of this flick. Unfortunately, HBO has done an absolutely HORRENDOUS job with the DVD transfer, and I am not even certain WHO'S fault it is because the results are so bad......lets take a closer look.....

There was no written specifications on this Warner Brothers-like snapper case package regarding The Hitcher's video and audio schemes, but both were horrid, so let me get to them......

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
The disc defaults to a widescreen letterboxed transfer which looks absolutely HORRIBLE --- the opening sequence where Howell is driving through the rain in Texas is SO RIDDLED with grain and blockyness, it looks like you're watching this on some scrambled cable channel --- Im not kidding. I am not sure if I just got a bad disc or what, but HBO wont confirm for me when this title was mastered and where; most of the film plays with this "fuzzyness" over the image --- sometimes the grain gets so bad, like I said, it appears as if STATIC is overtaking the screen.....HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE video transfer on this disc, and I just dont know where HBO got their master source from for this but its really bad.......it was VERY distracting and dissapointing.

Then, as suddenly as these problems with the "staticy grain" come, the image clears up during certain rare moments and the colors and image begin to look more like DVD should look --- but still FAR from perfect. That problem with the grain static was apparent through almost the ENTIRE run of this DVD.....Im curious, if anyone else has a copy of this film on DVD, please let me know if you get the same results; the video is so bad it is making me think I may have gotten a defective disc, but its been so long since the last time I watched this DVD in my collection, I cant recall if this video problem had always been there.

I'd be guessing at the aspect ratio, because, as I said, HBO didnt supply one, but with the letterboxing, I would say this was either a 2:35:1 or 2:40:1 transfer; either way, it is a HORRENDOUS transfer to look at --- probably the worst DVD I have ever seen. That serious. And its a shame because this picture has a loyal VERY underground fan following. I hope some other studio acquires the rights to this title and releases a cleaned-up special edition of some kind.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
There are NO labels indicating what kind of language and surround audio options there are on the box of this DVD, so when first putting it in, it defaults to a menu that allows you to choose languages, and the choices seemed to be either Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Surround (2.0). I ran the Dolby 5.1 track, of course, and, like with the video, was completely unimpressed. Man, does this track lack dynamic range --- you're going to have to be prepared to turn your main processor's volume control to almost MAXIMUM in order to get anything substantial out of this track, because I had to. Nothing except for thunderstorms and an occasional bullet echo make it into the surrounds, as the soundstage is mainly front heavy --- but the lack of power on this track and dynamic-ness was ASTONISHINGLY low.

A horribly weak effort in the audio and video departments of the DVD release of The Hitcher --- which, believe it or not --- may already be out of print. If you are diehard fan of the film (Mister Dean Martin I may be talking to you here) and want to add it to your "owned" collection, you may need to find this version I just reviewed online somewhere, but be warned: the quality sucks.

Did you want extras from HBO for this cheap package they put out of a film that deserved better treatment? How about this: Cast and Crew Bios and thats it!

Come on, HBO.....work with some other studio and give the rights up for this title because it is in SERIOUS need of a remastering with extra features because, as I have exhaustively said, it does have a loyal underground fan following.....God Forbid we ask HBO to remaster ANYTHING that came out of THEIR OWN studios......

[dean_martin]

".......because I cut off his legs......and his arms.....and his head......and I'm gonna do the same to you........"
-Rutger Hauer, The Hitcher

After one of our most distinguished members in here, Mr. Dean Martin, mentioned this 80's gem of a horror/thriller originally released by HBO for HBO in another thread, it IMMEDIATELY made me want to take the disc off my shelf to watch because this creepy little picture has become an underground classic ever since leaving the cable airwaves; if I am not mistaken, there MAY be a special edition of some kind in the works, but I need to confirm this with my people over at The Digital Bits.com. And so I promised Mr. Dean Martin an official review of the DVD, and here it is.....

(

I would rather not be too distinguished, but I appreciate the review. Two events prompted me to rent this movie recently - 1) Lex's review of Return of the Living Dead and 2) Hurricane Dennis. During my first year of college way back in '86, my new friends and I would get together regularly and watch movies. We had some favorites that we watched over and over and everyone knew lines from them. One of those was Return of the Living Dead - a campy zombie flick that was easy to enjoy and make fun of. Other favorites included Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Spicoli epitomized stonerdom), Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke, the HBO Rodney Dangerfield stand-up program that featured Andrew Dice Clay (imagine seeing the Dice Man for the first time at age 18) and The Hitcher. Other movies that received multiple viewings were Monty Python's The Holy Grail and A Clock Work Orange, but these flicks were a little more high-brow and weren't really conducive to cutting up during the movie. (Midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show don't qualify because we saw this one in theaters.)

After reading Lex's review of Return of the Living Dead and becoming aware of Hurricane Dennis' approach, I rented a bunch of older movies because the family would be staying indoors a lot and I knew we would need a break from endless Hurricane coverage. I picked The Hitcher from the good old days because, though it has some strong language, it's not full of gratuitous cursing and it doesn't have any nudity. Therefore, I thought it was marginally appropriate for my rowdy teenage boys. I hadn't seen it in years, so I wasn't expecting it to have the same visceral impact it had many years ago. Plus, in the old days we wore this one out. One of my buddies really latched onto Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance and could do an excellent impression of her rather bland delivery and quirky movements. His impression of her coming off the bus, getting the gun and delivering the line that begins, "When the truth comes down..." was dead on and hilarious. (Yes, he was a little effeminate which helped.) Mostly, I remembered my friend's impressions, the finger in the fries scene and Hauer getting hit by the truck at the end. My expectations weren't that high.

My 16 yr old and I watched it together. He enjoyed it. I don't think he ever got bored. We actually burst out laughing at the scene where Hauer slips into the booth with C. Thomas Howell and Hauer pretends he has a gun. Howell's reaction was priceless.

On a side note, my view of re-watching this flick after several years was jaded by C. Thomas Howell's career progression after being in The Hitcher.

Anyhow, back to the movie. Yes, the dvd's picture is grainy in spots and details are lost in the night scenes, but I think the picture quality was consistent with the bleak location - dry, desolate smalltown West Texas. The picture quality was not that distracting to me, but I'm not a "videophile." What surprised me was the believability of the explosions in this movie (I didn't expect it to be up to today's standards), the pacing and the steely coldness of Hauer's character. Yes, there were some things left unexplained like Hauer's escape from the prisoner transport bus. Other unexplained events like Hauer's ability to show up wherever Howell was and Hauer's motivation for terrorizing Howell have been noted as shortcomings by others, but these things didn't bother me. The official editorial comment at amazon.com even suggests that Hauer was actually Howell's "other" personality and that Howell was the killer all along. I thought it was more straight forward in this respect. I must have missed the clues to this possibility, but I'm willing to explore it if anyone has any thoughts on this subject. (It's been pointed out that the car driven by Howell from Chicago enroute to San Diego actually had a Texas tag.)

I enjoyed watching this movie again after many years. It still had tension and suspense. Hauer is creepy, Howell gives one of his better performances and Leigh is still funny though she doesn't mean to be (until, of course, she winds up tied between the truck and trailer). I think it rises above most B-movies with a similar premise.

[Lexmark3200]

"Yes, the dvd's picture is grainy in spots and details are lost in the night scenes, but I think the picture quality was consistent with the bleak location - dry, desolate smalltown West Texas. The picture quality was not that distracting to me, but I'm not a "videophile.""

Dean,

This is suprising, because the version I own of this DVD is beyond grainy in "spots" --- it is downright HORRIBLE to look at and to me was more than not consistent with the bleak location --- this was definitely NOT a successful video transfer that we were looking at, IF we were looking at the same print of this DVD. There are certain scenes, especially in the beginning, like I said, that look as though you're watching a static-loaded scrambled cable channel; perhaps I got a defective disc, but those chances are slim......

"Yes, there were some things left unexplained like Hauer's escape from the prisoner transport bus. Other unexplained events like Hauer's ability to show up wherever Howell was and Hauer's motivation for terrorizing Howell have been noted as shortcomings by others, but these things didn't bother me."

Hmmmmmm......interesting because it bothered ME.......

"The official editorial comment at amazon.com even suggests that Hauer was actually Howell's "other" personality and that Howell was the killer all along."

No, I dont think this is what it was, although thats an interesting thought ---- I dont think there was THAT much cerebral thought put into this film.....I believe the POINT was that we never KNOW why Howell is being stalked by this guy randomly, and that is simply THE POINT.....so we are left with "who the hell WAS this creep who came out of nowhere to stalk this kid?"

"I thought it was more straight forward in this respect."

Thats what Im saying above.


"I must have missed the clues to this possibility, but I'm willing to explore it if anyone has any thoughts on this subject. (It's been pointed out that the car driven by Howell from Chicago enroute to San Diego actually had a Texas tag.)"

Nope --- its definitely an Illinois license plate and its definitely a 1977 Cadillac Eldorado because I owned one.

"I enjoyed watching this movie again after many years. It still had tension and suspense. Hauer is creepy, Howell gives one of his better performances and Leigh is still funny though she doesn't mean to be (until, of course, she winds up tied between the truck and trailer). I think it rises above most B-movies with a similar premise."

I can agree with this and Hauer IS creepy......ever see him in Nighthawks with Stallone?

Thanks for reading the review, which was for your behalf, mostly.....

[dean_martin]

I don't know what to say about the picture quality. It wasn't up to standards as compared to some of my "reference" dvds, but the quality (or lack thereof) didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film. However, I wouldn't call what I saw a scrambled cable channel. I did see a grainy picture and in places it approached what I would call "snow" - kinda like getting a tv channel with rabbit ear antennaes. In contrast, the sound quality of some cds does irritate the crap out of me rendering some titles unlistenable. But for some reason I'm not as anal with movie picture quality, although I do appreciate the vast improvement of dvd over vhs. I guess it's because I used to be a fan of guerilla filmmakers like John Waters and Euro-trash directors like Jess Franco and Jean Rolin and for some works I was happy with whatever print I could find.

"Yes, there were some things left unexplained like Hauer's escape from the prisoner transport bus. Other unexplained events like Hauer's ability to show up wherever Howell was and Hauer's motivation for terrorizing Howell have been noted as shortcomings by others, but these things didn't bother me."

Hmmmmmm......interesting because it bothered ME.......

Hauer gives Howell a challenge early in the film, "Stop me". As far as movie reasons go for terrorizing and framing someone, but not killing them, that will have to do for me. I think if there was too much back story on John Ryder, the audience might feel a little sympathetic toward the villian. It would have complicated the story too. I think these are 2 things the filmmakers were trying to avoid. However, I would've liked to have seen more detail with Hauer's escape from the bus. It seems the filmmakers missed an excellent oppurtunity to show some real carnage close to the end of the film.



"I must have missed the clues to this possibility, but I'm willing to explore it if anyone has any thoughts on this subject. (It's been pointed out that the car driven by Howell from Chicago enroute to San Diego actually had a Texas tag.)"

Nope --- its definitely an Illinois license plate and its definitely a 1977 Cadillac Eldorado because I owned one.


Thanks for clearing that up. I never noticed the plate, but I did a little research to see if this title is available for purchase and some idiot wrote that the car had a Texas plate which could've meant that the kid made up the story about driving from Chicago to San Diego. Oh well, you can't believe everything you read!

[Lexmark3200]

"I don't know what to say about the picture quality. It wasn't up to standards as compared to some of my "reference" dvds, but the quality (or lack thereof) didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film."

You are lucky.

"However, I wouldn't call what I saw a scrambled cable channel. I did see a grainy picture and in places it approached what I would call "snow" - kinda like getting a tv channel with rabbit ear antennaes."

Perhaps thats the better way to put it......I think I was a bit too critical of it.....but it DID look horrendous for DVD......

"Hauer gives Howell a challenge early in the film, "Stop me"."

Yeah, its a REALLY creepy part where he puts the knife up to his neck and Howell is like "What do you want?" as he's crying, and Hauer's like "I want you to stop me....."

"As far as movie reasons go for terrorizing and framing someone, but not killing them, that will have to do for me. I think if there was too much back story on John Ryder, the audience might feel a little sympathetic toward the villian. It would have complicated the story too. I think these are 2 things the filmmakers were trying to avoid. However, I would've liked to have seen more detail with Hauer's escape from the bus. It seems the filmmakers missed an excellent oppurtunity to show some real carnage close to the end of the film."

Absolutely agreed.

"Thanks for clearing that up. I never noticed the plate, but I did a little research to see if this title is available for purchase and some idiot wrote that the car had a Texas plate which could've meant that the kid made up the story about driving from Chicago to San Diego. Oh well, you can't believe everything you read!"

Agreed, and no problem about clearing it up.

[Lexmark3200]

I wanted to make a correction to this review but the system for some reason is not letting me make edits to my original post, and will not let me ALL CAP the title of the thread, so let me just add this here:

THE HITCHER was actually released by HBO AND TriStar, so it SHOULD have said "HBO/TriStar" after the title.....

Sorry for the inconsistency.....