Hitcher II - I've Been Waiting review by The Grim Ringler

Woe to you oh makers of Hitcher II. Woe to you oh peddlers of obscene tripe. For I, the Grim Ringler do curse you and your children to a fate worse than death. To a fate worse than Joanie Loves Chachi. Indeed I curse you to the very fate that I myself was cursed with – to be saddled for all eternity with the acting ‘skills’ of C. Thomas Howell. May his bizarre over-acting, his hypnotic hand-acting, and his slowly melting face forever haunt your dreams as they haunt my own.

Damn you.

Damn you all.

Ok, so in watching Hitcher II, old Uncle Grim took one for the team. I love the original and thought, say-hey, the sequel might be pretty rad, let’s give it a go. I was wrong. Oh how I was wrong. I had read the early rumors of how they were doing a prequel and that Rutger Hauer was going to be in it and all I and was like – neat! So my friend Oktober and I rented the bloody thing under the fool idea that perhaps it would be good, or at least entertaining. We were wrong. God how we were wrong.

Hitcher II follows our hero, umm, C. Thomas Howell, action cop, as he strives to fight crime in, well, it would seem, a plane, because that’s how we get to know him is we see him fly a plane around, land it on a rain soaked roadway, and save some kidnapped kid from a ‘bad man’. Whoo, go C. Thomas! Sadly, our hero breaks the cop code though and has gone too far to stop this ‘perp’ so he’s been canned and is now, dun-dun-dun, jobless. And to me, that’s fine ‘cause his girlfriend in the movie is the utterly hypnotic Kari Wuhrer and dammit man, suck it up. Have you seen your lady friend? Ugh. But no, our Jim is still obsessed by the events that occurred fifteen years ago where some hitchhiker he had picked up decided Jim was the perfect person to show how freaky and psycho he was and ended up killing people and pinning it all on J-man. Jim conquered old Hitcher I though and was better for it, well, other than him having the girl he fancied pulled in half by Hitcher, but that happens, ya know? But Jim can’t seem to shake the oogie-boogies from his mind and so he decides he needs to speak to the other person that knows what he’s been through, the sheriff that believed him about Hitcher in the first place and off he and, umm, the girl, go. And on this journey girl learns all about the horror of Hitcher, as told via some brilliant hand-acting by C. Thomas. A storm brews though and from it steps, AHHHHH, Hitcher II, as portrayed by Jake Busey’s teeth. So naturally girl feels that Jim is being an ass and forces him to pull over (which in turn makes the car stall, which ALWAYS happens with a newer model car in a rain storm) and naturally Hitcher II hitches a ride and hilarity ensues. Oh, and murder. Did I forget to mention murder ensues? I guess we do get to see Jim get killed though, so that’s nice. And we get to see a lot of cribbing from the first film, which is nice since it means the filmmakers at least saw the first one. Not that they got anything from it other than a nice paycheck for doing needless sequel. And the hell of it is that you never even find out why Hitcher II is after Jim or girl. Never. There are a lot of hints that he may be connected to Hitcher I but nothing is said. You can get away with that in the first film ‘cause it’s all about how this is just some madman that got off torturing this nice kid. This one, well, it’s all about Kari’s ass and Busey’s teeth.

Imagine if you will making sweet love to a chipper-shredder. Now think of something worse and that my friends is this movie. Have I seen worse films. Oh sure. But this one truly had to try to be bad. I mean, is it me or is C. Thomas’ face melting into his chin? And could Kari W. been less interested in her role? I think the only one that had fun was Busey because he got to essentially play himself. Or his dad. This is why people loathe horror films – it was a needless, brainless, pointless sequel just for the sake of making a sequel. The hell of it is that again, they could have at least made an interesting film that either built from the first of used it as a background. There are stories to be told in this universe, but did they bother to do that? No, of course not, instead they re-made the first one with less craft and care. All I could think as I watched the movie was that even I could have written a better story for it. That the writers thought that by killing off the first film’s lead they would shock the viewer and maybe ‘kick it up a notch’ as Hitcher II says, quoting Emeril needlessly, is exactly what’s wrong with this movie. Sure, it would be a shock, if you actually gave a damn about the guy. But you don’t. He’s a whiney, crazy mope that needs to just shut the hell up and smile ‘cause he had a fox as a girlfriend. The beauty of the first was that it, like Blair Witch Project, was a ghost story. It was a tall-tale about why you don’t pick up hitchhikers. Just as Jaws works in that same way, in the deep-down-gut way that makes horror so timeless. When it’s good you feel it, in your stomach, in your genes, feel it and feel the truth behind the shadow, the horror of the unknown, of the beast. All Hitcher II does is make you sick to your stomach like you ate moldy toast off of an old lady’s chest.

This is bad movie-making in every aspect of the phrase. And I pray that you heed my words and avoid this garbage at all costs. This is the kind of movie where I almost want to interview the people and ask them what the hell they thought they were doing and if they really believed this was a good film and a worthy sequel. Go rent The Hitcher instead and marvel in its simple beauty.

…c…




1 out of 10 Jackasses
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