Gettin' Hitched

When I saw The Queen on Sunday, it was actually part of a back-to-back movie run with my friends. But the first film in our double feature could not possibly have been more different -- we saw the new remake of The Hitcher.

In my opinion, this movie is not as bad as the aggregate reviews make it sound. It's not particularly great, I'll readily admit, but it gives you a decent enough ride.

You get some good tense moments peppered throughout -- not all the scares are cheap, "cat dropping down off the refrigerator on the hero" type of jumpy scares. It moves through the plot quickly, without too much extraneous stuff. Sean Bean is fun to watch, as is Neal McDonough.

I can't comment too much on comparing this remake to the original version of the film, which I have not seen. The two people I went with had, and we talked a little about the comparisons at a lunch in between our two movies. To hear them tell it, the movie is very similar, with two key changes. One is in the relationship between the two "heroes" of the film -- in the original, they are strangers (one is a hitchhiker, just like the psycho of the title); in the remake, they are dating.

The other change, I can't detail without spoiling things for those who might want to see the film. But suffice it to say, we all agreed that the changes actually were a big improvement on the story of the original. It made more logical sense, and led to a more satisfying resolution for the movie.

All that said, is it worth seeing? Probably only if slasher films are your cup of tea. If you are, this one probably rates around a B- in the pantheon in slasher films. Maybe I'm being a little too forgiving, because honestly, I was expecting much, much worse... sort of the "movie I'd have to sit through" before we all went to The Queen, which is really the reason I was joining them on the "movie day." The Hitcher might really just be a C+.

Either way, just a touch above average. Nothing extraordinary.