Review of The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003) by Squalid J — 25 Jul 2009

[I just read this review back and, you know, I think I went on too long. I'm posting it anyway 'cause it took a bloody long time to write, but you don't have to read it to know what I think of this film. It's stupid, it's unnecessary and it gets two out of ten only because some of the cinematography is nice. If you're a fan of the original, it will only hurt you.].

Let's get one thing straight here: aside from being one of the absolute greats of the horror/thriller genre, the original Hitcher was a deliberately self-contained story with a very definite ending. It never needed a sequel and it never wanted one, but some bright sparks got together and decided (seventeen years after the fact) to go ahead and make one anyway. Which might not have been so bad had they just rehashed the basic story with some completely different characters. If that had been the case I would have just switched the TV off* and gone to bed. I nearly did, until it dawned on me this "Jim" fella was actually Jim from the original. I mean, Jesus cockhole-fingering Christ, they actually went and made a fucking sequel to The Hitcher - and it's shit!

At this point I really should come clean and admit that this isn't going to be a fair and balanced review so much as a deliberate hatchet job. A long-ass, honest, heart-felt hatchet job. Because unlike the makers of this shit, I have respect for the source material.

Basically, our hero Jim is back, and they actually got C. Thomas Howell in to play him once again (not that you'd know - dude got old). To be honest, Howell was the only flaw in the original - a decent-but-not-great actor given a role that was clearly beyond him and expected to square up to Rutger Hauer - but at least back then he was trying real hard. If you look at his resume since, he's actually done a lot of film and TV work, none of which I've actually seen; nevertheless, based on the evidence of this one he's matured (if that's the right word) into something of a soap opera actor. Either that or, as I think is the case, he just ain't trying. Anyway, Jim's become a cop now, but as is the norm for decade-plus-later sequels (Hallowe'en H20, anyone?) he's still scarred by what happened to him all those years ago, which is why he keeps gunning down innocent people. Eventually this loses him his job, so he phones Captain Esteridge (yep), who advises him to come back to Texas to face his demons and by the way, bring that lovely wife of yours. Little do they know that blah blah blah arse pants crap fartsticks.

The murdering hitcher they end up picking up (because Jim's wife keeps his testicles in the glove compartment) turns out to be yet another psycho, this time played by Jake Busey. Jake's played the evil killer before, in The Frighteners, which bothered me even in that otherwise fine film because the guy's about as threatening as a two-legged kitten. He looks like Bill and Ted combined, and I genuinely don't know if he's a bad actor or he just treats every film he's in like he knows it's a piece of shit. But what really slays me about this movie is that there's a suggestion in the film that this is somehow the same guy, John Ryder - "he just looks different". Which I think might just be the stupidest thing I've ever heard in a movie. Yep, it's stupider than the "dilly dally shilly shally" bit in Advent Children. It's dumber than the "power glove" joke in Freddy's Dead. People, this is even more moronic than Australia, in it's entirety. This is it. Ground zero. Any last words?

It's actually Jim's emasculating wife, Maggie, who turns out to be the hero of the piece...which is fine, I guess, even if by the time you realise that's the direction they're going in, you're brain has atrophied. From then on you're pretty much reduced to praying for an ending - any ending, as long as it comes NOW. Because this, my friends, is worse than garbage. This is to The Hitcher what a painful post-curry shit is to you.

* God bless ITV. Incidentally, they had a lady in the corner translating the dialogue into sign language, which is good, and it wasn't as distracting as I thought it might be. But I did find myself feeling very sorry for the poor girl. She had the horrible task of watching and trying to look interested in this miserable fucking film. I hope they paid her well.