An online film club. Every week or so, we vote on what movies to watch. We watch them, discuss them, post things about them as well as anything else pertaining to our love for movies. A couple of us also do a podcast about them, releasing every Wednesday. All discussion posts may contain spoilers, so beware. PRAISE CINEMA!!!
MOVIE OF THE WEEK
The next driving movie we are gonna watch is 1986's The Hitcher.
I've never seen this, but it looks pretty sweet and has been on my watchlist for some time, so i'm excited to check it out.
Join me in watching it this week and let's talk about it. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments and/or HERE on this quick survey. Have fun and PRAISE CINEMA!
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First watch. I didn’t know much about this at all so I went into it pretty blind.
I liked it overall but it went in waves for me. Sometimes I was into it, sometimes I was hoping it would hurry up or that it was being ridiculous.
Rutger Hauer was a very good, unfeeling killing machine (It would have been amazing if he turned out to be a replicant!) and I really liked when the dynamic changed and Jim became hunted by the cops.
I think the film was held back by not leaning more into exploitation, it feels like it wants to go more into gore but is trying to put deeper meaning into everything and misses the mark for me.
My favourite stunt was when the 2 cop cars flipped at once (after the sudden breaking)
Overall, it was worth seeing but it’s hard to rate it above 6.5/10
I was definitely expecting him to drop a "like tears in rain" the whole time haha
This movie quickly jumped in with both feet, and once it got going, it never let up. It was (mostly) unpredictable and Rutger Hauer is unnerving and a joy to watch eat up every scene. To me, The Hitcher (Jack whatever-his-name-is, which is definitely not his real name. If he even HAS a name!) is closer to a slasher villain than anything. He is enigmatic and boarderline supernatural. A true force to be reckoned with. One Jim's character can't seem to handle. The score was great, but I wish there was some diagetic music somewhere in the movie. It's weird that they are doing so much driving and barely ever touch the radio. But, that certainly might have come down to the budget.
I really loved this movie, but it is certainly not without it's flaws. It's got some jank, I would say. Some goofy bits if you aren't willing to suspend your disbelief a bit. My biggest complaint is how much and how often they seemed to pull their punches. Like we rarely see the violence, just the reactions. And for a genre movie in the late 80's, that was disapointing. Give me a cool shot of JJL getting ripped in half. A dummy full of pig guts would have sufficed. Give me SOMETHING with that family that got killed more than just a shocked face.
A gem I am very glad to have finally seen, but a flawed one at that.