The Hitcher (2007)

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Movie
German title The Hitcher
Original title The Hitcher
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2007
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 16 (theatrical version)
FSK 18 (uncut)
Rod
Director Dave Meyers
script Eric Red ,
Jack Wade Wall
production Michael Bay ,
Andrew Form ,
Brad Fuller ,
Alfred Haber ,
Charles R. Meeker
music Steve Jablonsky
camera James Hawkinson
cut Jim May
occupation

The Hitcher is an American horror - thriller from 2007 and a remake of the 1986 film appeared Hitcher, the Highway Killer . The script was written by Eric Red , who was responsible for the original.

action

Over Spring Break , Jim and his girlfriend Grace drive from Texas to New Mexico , where they want to visit Grace's girlfriends. On a rainy night, the two college students almost run over a stranger on the highway who is standing motionless in the middle of the street. Grace persuades Jim to continue driving and leave the stranger behind. While Grace is going to the toilet at the next gas station, the stranger who was in a truck reappears. Since his car is said to have broken down, Jim accepts his request to take him to the nearest motel in Tatum , which the gas station attendant says is fifteen miles away.

Although the frightened Grace protests, the three of them drive on. The stranger, who introduces himself as John Ryder, first harasses the young couple with intimate questions and then becomes aggressive. He breaks one of the couple's cell phones, takes out a pocket knife and threatens Grace first. Then he holds the knife to Jim's throat and asks him to say: "I want to be dead." Jim refuses this and with combined forces the two manage to kick the psychopath out of the moving car after a sharp braking maneuver. The next morning, they both wake up on the shoulder of the highway where they parked their car. Last night's horror seems to be over. But when Jim and Grace are overtaken by a family car on the highway, they discover Ryder with a child in the back seat. Immediately they try to warn the parents. They drive next to the other car, and when Jim is not paying attention to the road, they come off the road because of an oncoming truck and tumble down a small slope. The family just keeps going.

With their car ready for scrap, Jim and Grace have to continue on foot. The foreboding of the two is confirmed after a short walk. They discover the family's car on the side of the road. Except for the father, all inmates are dead; Ryder even brutally murdered the children. Jim and Grace take the seriously injured father in the back seat of his car to the nearest rest stop. While Jim stays in the car with the man, Grace goes inside covered with blood. The man eventually dies in Jim's hands. When Grace disappears in the toilet, the waitress calls the police.

After the police arrived, there was a serious misunderstanding, as a result of which the two students, despite all attempts to explain, were viewed as perpetrators and were arrested. After interrogation, Jim is locked up. While Grace is waiting in the interrogation room, she suddenly sees Ryder again. Several murdered police officers lie in the hallway. Grace takes a pistol and frees Jim from his cell in the basement of the police station, who has been threatened again by the real killer. They flee through the desert and meet another policeman in a remote junkyard. While Jim tries to talk to the cop, Grace points the gun at him to get him to quickly get into the police car. When Ryder executes the policeman from an ambush with a head shot , it looks to his colleagues as if Grace is the perpetrator.

Jim and Grace flee the highway in a patrol car. Several other police cars and a helicopter pursue them. The two of them contact Lieutenant Esteridge over the radio, who had actually already come to the conclusion in the station that the young people cannot be the perpetrators. Because Jim ignores the order to stop, the police begin to stop the getaway car with gunfire. Suddenly Ryder races up from behind in a black 1979 Trans Am and shoots all the cops. While the patrol car slowly comes to a stop because of a flat tire, Ryder overtakes them with a stoic look in their direction and drives away.

Jim and Grace escape to a motel. After a shower together, Jim announces that he will leave the room for 15 minutes to call for help using a public payphone. Grace falls asleep in front of the television. When she wakes up again, she suspects Jim in bed next to her, but is surprised by Ryder. She escapes into the bathroom, which she leaves a few minutes later armed. A shocking sight awaits them outside. Jim is chained between the truck and trailer of a truck and Ryder threatens to tear him apart. Grace tries to force Ryder to switch off the engine by force of arms, but Ryder convinces her to get into the truck and explains that the truck would roll away if it slipped off the clutch. When the police arrive, Grace holds the pistol to Ryder's head, who repeats the phrase “I want to be dead”. Since Grace doesn't shoot him, Ryder angrily steps on the accelerator and Jim is jerked in two. The police now clearly know that they were wrong and that Ryder is the wanted serial killer .

Police arrest the real culprit and find out that the real John Ryder has been missing for two weeks. Ryder is unimpressed by the death penalty and is now to be taken to prison in a convict transporter. Grace drives after the car with Esteridge, who wants to take her to Albuquerque for psychological trauma treatment . However, Ryder manages to free himself from his handcuffs and thus cut the throat of the police officer sitting next to him and steal his gun. He shoots the police officer in the passenger seat, causing a serious accident on the highway in which the van overturns and rams an approaching vehicle, which in turn rams Esteridge's car. He was trapped in his car in the collision. Grace steals the pistol from Esteridge and is determined to take matters into her own hands. She approaches the van but is overwhelmed and imprisoned by Ryder upon opening the back door. Ryder shoots the floor covered with leaking gasoline , causing the van to go up in flames. However, Grace manages to get free with a cop's rifle. Ryder executes Esteridge with a headshot and quietly leaves the crime scene. Grace follows him and knocks him down with two shots on the bulletproof vest. In response to his statement: "Feels good, doesn't it?" She tells him that she doesn't feel anything. Ryder is visibly disappointed, while Grace kills him with a headshot at the same time.

background

The film was shot in Austin and Taylor , Texas, and various locations in New Mexico , including Chimayo , Galisteo , Moriarty , Santa Fe and Santo Domingo Pueblo . Filming began on June 12, 2006 and ended on August 10, 2006. The film celebrated its world premiere on January 19, 2007 in the USA. The film was shown in Germany from March 1, 2007 and one day later in Austria . On the opening weekend in the US were about 7.8 million US dollars recorded a total of almost US $ 16.5 million were taken in the US. Worldwide revenues were nearly $ 25.4 million. Over 58,700 viewers were counted at the German box office.

Director Dave Meyers made a cameo in the film , and the ID of the real John Ryder has a photo of him.

While Jim and Grace are at the motel, there are two references to Alfred Hitchcock films . The scene in the shower is reminiscent of Psycho (1960). On television, Grace watches The Birds (1963).

Awards

In 2007 Sophia Bush received the Teen Choice Award for Best Actress in the Horror / Thriller Category and Breakout Female . The following year, the film received a nomination for the Taurus Stunt Award for best work with a vehicle.

Reviews

Lukas Foerster sums up on Critic.de : “Like all Platinum Dunes productions, The Hitcher is technically superior to the genre average. Indeed, of all the Bay protégees, Meyers cut the best figure on his mainstream debut. […] Meyers renounces excessive stylization, uses the cinematic means extremely economically and stages a refreshingly straightforward, tense thriller. [...] Only the intertextual references that Meyers integrated in his strip are a little over-ambitious. [...] If you leave Hitchcock aside and forget the original for 83 minutes, a very respectable film comes to light that is designed to rekindle some hope for the future of American genre cinema. "

Christoph Petersen von Filmstarts sees advantages for younger viewers: “Dave Meyer's“ The Hitcher ”remake is not bad, but simply inferior to the original in every respect - with the exception of the explicit scenes of violence. For a young horror generation who did not grow up with Robert Harmon's cult flick, there is still an entertainingly exciting movie night in here, which definitely makes you want to catch up on the 1986 original on DVD. "

The lexicon of the international film is less open-minded : "Failed attempt to revive the terror classic of the same name from 1986, in which neither the killer’s fears and longing for death nor a trace of logic can be found."

The verdict of the film magazine Cinema is mixed : “For three quarters of an hour - and that is the real surprise - it is actually very exciting. The new "hitcher" turns out to be an effectively made noble trash without sagging and with a few veritable moments of shock. When, however, halfway through the film, a large-format car crash scene is staged as a stupid, suspense-braking pop video and the whole highway plot from then on, boldly disregarding the original, tiles straight to Absurdistan, at some point you don't want to go along. And the showdown is just a joke. Unfortunately not a good one. "

Soundtrack

  1. Closer from Nine Inch Nails
  2. Move Along from The All-American Rejects
  3. Out Of My Hands by The Dave Matthews Band
  4. How We Operate by Gomez
  5. Fallin 'in love again from Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds
  6. Building up to feel so good by The Velcro Pygmies
  7. On and on by Stephen Bishop
  8. From here I can almost see the sea by David Gray
  9. Don't give up on us by David Soul
  10. Remember by Al Parsons
  11. The Cowboy by Eric Speier

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Hitcher . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2007 (PDF; theatrical version).
  2. ^ Certificate of Release for The Hitcher . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, March 2007 (PDF; unabridged version).
  3. ↑ Locations according to the Internet Movie Database
  4. ↑ a b c d budget and box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ a b Start dates according to the Internet Movie Database
  6. ↑ a b Background information according to the Internet Movie Database
  7. ↑ a b Lukas Foerster: The Hitcher. critic.de, accessed on April 10, 2009 .
  8. ↑ a b Nominations and awards according to the Internet Movie Database
  9. ^ Christoph Peterson: The Hitcher. filmstarts.de, accessed on April 10, 2009 .
  10. ↑ The Hitcher. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  11. ↑ The Hitcher. Cinema.de, accessed on April 10, 2009 .