#SundayShorts with THE HITCHER!

Posted on December 8, 2024 by Bradley Crain

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is driving a car across the country to San Diego. Tired and needing some help staying awake, he makes the major mistake of picking up a hitchhiker, the psychotic John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). Through a stroke of luck, he’s able to knock the “Hitcher” out of his car and keep going. Unfortunately, John Ryder isn’t content with being dumped by young Jim Halsey. Rather, he decides to stalk Jim and frame him for a cross-country murder spree.

I first saw THE HITCHER at a friend’s house when I was in the 4th grade. It scared the ever living crap out of me. I have never even pondered the possibility of picking up a hitchhiker because there’s always a chance that it could be a psycho like John Ryder. The genius of THE HITCHER is how it taps into the horror of everyday life. We pass by strangers every day. Who’s to know if there’s a John Ryder in our presence just waiting for us to invite them into our lives?!

What can I say about Rutger Hauer as John Ryder?! He absolutely owns the film. There’s no wonder his roles in BLADE RUNNER and THE HITCHER would come to define his career. He was one of the great artists, and I’ve missed him ever since I learned of his death while I was sitting on the beach in Perdido Key, FL in 2019. C. Thomas Howell & Jennifer Jason Leigh are excellent as well. As a big-time Rutger Hauer fan, THE HITCHER is an intense film that I watch at least once a year.

Five Fast Facts:

C. Thomas Howell admitted that he was actually afraid of Rutger Hauer on and off the set because of Hauer’s general intensity.
Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT, OPPENHEIMER) has listed THE HITCHER as one of his favorite movies.
Entertainment Weekly ranked THE HITCHER as the nineteenth scariest movie of all time.
Gene Davis, the psycho killer from Charles Bronson’s 10 TO MIDNIGHT plays Trooper Dodge in this movie. Based on my love of the Bronson Cannon classic, I love seeing Davis in any film.
President George W. Bush served on the board of the company that lent money to HBO to finance this movie. During the 2000 presidential election, Bush’s critics used his involvement in this film to discredit his stance on “family values” and his criticism of pervasive violence in Hollywood movies.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Chopping Mall, Demons 2, The Fly, The Hitcher

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!

4 Shots From 4 1986 Horror Films

Chopping Mall (1986, dir by Jim Wynorski)

Demons 2 (1986, dir by Lamberto Bava)

The Fly (1986, dir. by David Cronenberg)

The Hitcher (1986, dir by Robert Harmon)

Hallmark Review: Jesse Stone: Lost In Paradise (2015, dir. Robert Harmon)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it’s been 5 years since I last watched a Jesse Stone movie. That was Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010). I remember that one being quite awful. This one isn’t. I hope this is a sign that Hallmark is pivoting when it comes to the material in their films. Yes, it’s just an average detective story, but it looks, feels, and uses much more adult material. Thank goodness! At times I feel like I’m watching Hallmark: The Heart Of Infantile Adults network. Yes, Jesse bitches a little bit about cellphones in this, but I buy that as part of his character, not as something put in to pander to people who don’t like cellphones. In fact, he really doesn’t complain about cellphones in general, but about texting.

The first question on your mind is probably whether you can jump into the series with this film. Yes, but you will feel like you have been dropped into a moving current. You really won’t be lost, but it seems to very much pick up where it left off. In this case, Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) is working in Paradise, Massachusetts. The movie revolves around an unsolved killing that has been attributed to a man known as the Boston Ripper, played by Luke Perry. But it’s still an open case cause they really can’t quite pin it on him even though they have put him behind bars for three similar murders. Stone is curious to figure it out.

There’s also this subplot involving this girl that Stone finds on the street and helps out. It might have ties to earlier material, but the only tie to the material in this movie I noticed is that helping her is like preventing a possible future victim of someone like the Boston Ripper.

There’s honestly not much else to say. The case is somewhat interesting, but the movie really isn’t about the case in particular. It’s like the title suggests, Jesse Stone is lost in the metaphorical paradise and lives in the literal town of Paradise. It’s about a transitory period in his life. Heck, they even put up this title card at the start just in case you don’t pick up on that.