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Title:
The Hitcher: HD DVD And DVD Combo Format
Media:
HD DVD And DVD Hybrid Optical Disc
HD
DVD Region: N/A
DVD
Region: One
Genre:
Horror Thriller
Stars:
Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton and Neal McDonough
Writers:
Eric Red, Jake Wade Wall, and Eric Bernt
Based
On The Film Written By: Eric Red
Director:
Dave Meyers
Feature
length: 84 minutes
HD
DVD Exclusive Extras: (U) Control Picture In Picture
Extras:
Deleted Scenes, Road Kill – The Ultimate Car Crash Featurette, Fuel
Your Gear: The Making Of The Hitcher Featurette, Dead End Makeup
Featurette, Chronicles Of A Killer
HD DVD Languages: English and French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound
DVD
Languages: English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
HD
DVD Subtitles: English Subtitles for Deaf And Hearing Impaired and French
Language Subtitles
DVD
Subtitles: English Subtitles for Deaf And Hearing Impaired and French and
Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Elite Red HD Case
HD
DVD/DVD Chapter Stops: 20
HD
DVD Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound
DVD
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2006HD DVD/DVD Release: 2007
Theatrical
Distributor: Rogue Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Twenty
years after the original cult classic The Hitcher shocked audiences both
theatrically and on home video, Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes Productions
attempts yet another horror film remake with Sean Bean entering the role of
enigmatic serial killer John Ryder in this update of The Hitcher. Rutger
Hauer’s turn in the original film is arguably one of his best and most popular
villainous onscreen roles from the 1980s outside of his masterful
personification of the character of Roy Batty in Blade Runner. Hauer
pretty much made The Hitcher the cult hit that it was and the film was
shocking and scary at the time of it’s release because no one had really made
anything quite like it before although there have been reviewers that cite the
film itself as a loose remake of Steven Spielberg’s Duel. I’d have to
watch both Duel and the original The Hitcher back to back to see
if I personally agree with that comparison, but I suppose there are similarities
between the two genre films.
C.
Thomas Howell starred in the original film and a 2003 sequel as the object or
obsession so to speak of Hauer’s John Ryder and the original film at times
made the viewer wonder even whether or not all the events were actually real as
things grew increasingly out of the realm of rational explanation. The fate of
co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh in the film was one of the film’s biggest
shockers along with the famous finger in the French fries bit. However as
memorable as The Hitcher was for audiences on the big screen and on VHS
in the 1980s, in all honesty the film doesn’t quite seem as shocking as it did
back in 1986 because there have been many types of films that have followed in
it’s footsteps for better or for worse and expectations have changed. I agree
that an update of The Hitcher on paper anyway seems like a good idea, but
if you are going to do a remake it should at least have enough elements to it
that make it stand well on it’s own. The 2003 remake of Tobe Hooper’s still
shocking masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre worked well because it
pretty much stood on it’s own with a new vision of the sadistic killers that
never tried to top the original. In fact I’d say both the original and remake
of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are worthy of keeping side by side in
one’s horror video library. Yet even the remake owed a great deal to R. Lee
Ermey’s memorable role as the town sheriff from hell. He pretty much made the
prequel to the remake interesting too.
Now
the casting of Sean Bean is about as good a John Ryder as you can probably get
and he indeed has some great moments, particularly the more intimate scenes
where he is just talking and not so much the action sequences though not because
he is not suited for them or because the screen direction is not good, but
simply because what worked in 1986 doesn’t necessarily work today for a
generation that grew up on over the top action films and is dare I say it, not
quite as innocent as the teenagers of the 1980s. The two other problems with the
film are not so much a cause of the casting of Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton,
but rather nothing significantly different from the original film is done with
the protagonists. There was a moment where Bush’s character loses her cell
phone where I thought, Good now this opens new possibilities that can give
this version a new life of it’s own! While the deleted scenes display one
use of the lost phone, the completed film does absolutely nothing with it and
therefore violates Chekov’s rule, which I am paraphrasing here when I state if
show display a gun at the beginning of a story, you better use it by the end.
The fact that she lost her phone is not a significant enough example to fulfill
what could have been an exciting way to take the story in a new direction. What
would John Ryder do with their cell phone? What could he find out from having
it? There are missed opportunities in this film that unfortunately only reveal
that the screenplay is not much more than a glorified rewrite and it forces the
viewer who has seen and remember the original to compare the two as a result.
The
other problem is simply one person being stalked in the desert or anywhere else
for that matter is scarier than two. To be alone with someone holding you at
knife point, who is telling you to tell him “I want to die” is far more
disturbing and scary than two people experiencing it if only because even with
the terrible threat, there is still a certain comfort or perhaps even hope,
however futile, that somehow “we will get out of this” while a threat
alone brings up even more primal fears than the dynamic set in this film.
Finally if State Troopers caught a killer like John Ryder, I seriously doubt
they would leave their guns unholstered where they can be easily be pulled out
and they wouldn’t just bind his hands and shackle his legs, odds are they
would take Hannibal Lecter precautions.
Universal
Studios Home Entertainment has released the remake of The Hitcher as an
HD DVD And DVD Combo Format Disc, which means that one side is an HD DVD 30
gigabyte dual layered platter while the flip side is a dual layered DVD-9. The
picture on both sides are presented in a widescreen (2.40:1) aspect ratio with
the HD DVD side encoded with VC-1 while the DVD side, that will work in any
device capable of playing a Region One NTSC DVD, is encoded in the traditional
MPEG 2. The extra features included on both sides are nearly identical and are
encoded in MPEG-2 as well with the exception of the (U) Control Picture In
Picture interactive feature on the HD DVD side that features lots of
behind-the-scenes footage, including the stunt choreography and gore makeup
effects transitions that is quite interesting. Hearing that a real decapitated
head would appear quite yellow because the blood would have more than likely
been drained out is interesting because the KNB effects technicians go on to
reveal that audiences are so use to graphic, not necessarily realistic gore
effects that if they were to create a fake head to be realistic, odds are
viewers would think it was a dummy head or something and wouldn’t be able to
suspend their disbelief. There are cast interview clips as well as four mock
news reports that can be viewed normally in the non-HD exclusive bonus
materials.
In
fact I think quite a bit of the clips seen in the (U) Control Picture In Picture
featurette is repeated in some form in the 4 by 3 featurettes that include a
makeup featurette (13:08), a making of featurette (10:02), a stunt featurette
(10:56) and the four fake TV news spots (4:36).
Eight deleted scenes that can be viewed individually or through a “Play
All” feature wrap up the bonus materials that appear on both the HD DVD and
DVD sides of this optical hybrid disc. The DVD side has a reel of previews that
includes Hot Fuzz, Smokin’ Aces, Alpha Dog, and an HD DVD promo (4:50).
After
reviewing so many standard definition DVDs before getting back to a genuine high
definition optical disc, I must admit the difference between the high definition
version of The Hitcher is much appreciated when compared to the standard
definition 480p version that seems almost a shade or two lighter and duller even
when upconverted to 1080i. The HD DVD version can be viewed up to 1080p
resolution where available. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround
Soundtrack is lively and well mixed. A French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus
Surround Soundtrack is also included on the HD DVD side along with optional
English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and French Language
Subtitles. The standard definition side includes the traditional Dolby Digital
5.1 Surround Soundtracks in English and French along with English Subtitles For
The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and French and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded
as an option too.
The
interactive menus on the HD DVD side work beautifully and feature animated
scenes from the film while the standard definition DVD side contains standard
interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. The 2006 remake of The
Hitcher is neither a great film nor a very bad one. It mainly suffers from
not taking the characters anywhere that we haven’t seen before in the original
and thus I feel the filmmakers missed an opportunity to make the remake
something that could stand-alone and defy comparison. The Hitcher: HD DVD And
DVD Combo Format is available at retailers on and offline now courtesy of
Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2007 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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