The Hitcher (1986)
If only Jim had listened to his mother!
By 1986, the slasher subgenre was in full swing. Michael Myers had already infiltrated the deceptively safe space of American suburbia. Jason Voorhees had emerged from his watery grave to wreak havoc on the naughty, unsuspecting teenagers of Camp Crystal Lake. Freddy Krueger had gained entrance into the subconscious of the offspring of his vigilante murderers to attack them at their most helpless and vulnerable. And the Sawyer family, the ones who kicked off the subgenre craze in artfully macabre fashion, was still busy picking off random travelers to fill their starving stomachs. Scattered among this crop of horror classics, however, existed a horde of cheaply produced, B-grade (as in bottom of the barrel) schlock fests and knockoffs that emphasized excessive bloodshed and gratuitous nudity (of the female variety, of course) at the expense of the creative plot and character development that elevated the best entries. Thanks to the staff at Rotten Tomatoes, it's still possible to uncover hidden gems in the slasher arena that, for one reason or another, didn't achieve the mainstream appeal of some of the other titles previously mentioned. The Hitcher fortunately falls into the latter category.
While some horror films prefer to adhere, at least for the most part, to the rules of logic when creating their scenario -- after all, what's more terrifying to an audience than a threat that could actually happen in the real world? -- others put less effort into crafting a credible narrative and more into recreating the sensation of a literal nightmare brought to life on the screen. Such is the case here. Written by Eric Red and directed by Robert Harmon, The Hitcher doesn't bear scrutiny when contemplated in retrospect or even viewed in the moment. It's almost entirely absurd in the logical sense, which may turn away the attention spans of audiences who demand intellectual stimulation with their horror, but taken on its own terms, The Hitcher is a taut, frequently literally breathtaking excursion into our worst nightmare of trying to do a good deed and suffering the most unbearable of consequences for it. Seriously, on more than one occasion while watching this movie, I had to expel a deep breath of empathetic distress. That's because, like any good horror movie that seeks to tell more of a nightmare than a coherent, traditional story, this one succeeds primarily because it endears us to the protagonist required to undergo said nightmare and evokes our deepest hope for their survival.
On a dark and stormy night (would the weather be in any other atmospheric condition?), Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), a young adult motorist, is driving a driveaway car from his hometown of Chicago en route to San Diego, where he intends to return it to its owner. As the hours of oppressively quiet driving, compounded by the darkness of the early morning sky, begin to wear on him as he passes through the West Texas desert, Jim realizes he needs a distraction greater than that of his cigarette or bottle of water to keep his eyes open. That's where the titular hitcher comes in. Standing on the side of the road with his thumb extended and the rain pounding over his head is a mysterious man who identifies himself as John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). In Jim's naive young mind, this presents a mutually beneficial transaction: for John, he can be rescued from the rain and driven to wherever he needs to go; for Jim, he'll have some company to stimulate him throughout his long road trip. Without a second's worth of hesitation, Jim pulls over and welcomes the man inside, a grave mistake he'll come to realize almost immediately. Right from the jump, John reminds Jim why he should have heeded his mother's warning to never pick up a hitchhiker.
He's unsettlingly quiet and vague about his desired location. When Jim notices the Volkswagen Beetle that had initially cut him off stranded, John presses his leg down on the accelerator before he can get a proper look inside, coolly explaining that he dismembered the driver and intends to do the same to Jim. John extracts a switchblade and threatens to stab Jim, defying him to stop him, but when a tearfully terrified Jim notices the passenger door is ajar, he promptly shoves him out onto the street, cheering in assumed triumph and reinvigorated with the euphoria of a second chance at life. Little does he know that his nightmare is only beginning, as the following morning, Jim realizes that not only is John following him with a relentlessness and omnipresence bordering on supernatural, but has somehow managed to frame Jim for his heinous crimes, turning the entire police force in the state against him. With the solo support of a young, sympathetic waitress named Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who has the compassion and intelligence to see that Jim is innocent, Jim must evade the sharp blade of a madman hell-bent on either taking his life or gradually eroding his sanity, as well as the capture of a corrupt police department with more nefarious intentions in mind than merely locking Jim safely away behind a jail cell.
Screenwriter Eric Red hits the ground running in crafting the setup to his nightmarishly simple scenario, wasting absolutely zero time on backstory for either of his central characters. He establishes Halsey and Ryder with the utmost efficiency, placing them each in their respective role as driver and hitchhiker, unveiling their current, most basic motivations, and promptly pitting them against each other in a battle of wills that will continue throughout the remaining 97 tension-soaked minutes. Apart from Jim originating from Chicago, we aren't spoon-fed much information about where he or Ryder have come from, what relationships they have to other people, or what their long-term goals are for the future. Red places viewers in the car alongside his characters, buckles us in tightly, and drives us directly into the burning, unforgiving inferno of pure hell from which escape is as tantalizing as it is elusive.
Red and Harmon utilize the personalities and interplay of Jim Halsey and John Ryder to explore the symbiotic relationship between good and evil. As portrayed by Hauer with bone-chilling detachment, evil is a relentless, all-consuming, corruptive force that can slowly drain every last drop of the benevolence and innocence from the purest of heart. When Jim first agrees to pick up Ryder, the hitcher's initial motivation is to subject his goodhearted driver to the same gruesome fate of his previous one. Once Jim's kindness and paralyzing fear are superseded by a strongly developed sense of self-preservation, Ryder changes gears and decides it would be more fun to challenge his opponent to an interminable game of cat and mouse, testing his resilience and benevolence to the limit and making him question whether a quick, painful, bloody death at the tip of a switchblade would have been the easier way out. Taking a cue from John Carpenter and Debra Hill's ingeniously straightforward screenplay for Halloween, Red takes a bare-bones approach to his narrative, structuring The Hitcher as one extended chase, affording the viewer but a handful of moments of downtime before ratcheting up the tension to an 11 and upping the stakes with each new encounter.
The relationship between John Ryder and Jim Halsey is the most fascinating and mysterious component of The Hitcher, and Red refuses to cheapen its mystique by supplying a concrete answer by the conclusion. In keeping with the intentionally nightmarish atmosphere of the story, it's apparent there's something going on between these two men, something that draws them together. It's almost as if fate itself forced them to meet on this rainy Saturday morning. Ryder was meant to be standing on the side of the road, and Jim was meant to find him there and permit him access to his vehicle. Even though Jim openly states that his mother advised him against such a foolish action, he still stops and welcomes this stranger inside with a thoughtless smile. While Jim views his assailant as the complete and psychotic stranger he by all accounts is, Ryder doesn't view Jim in that same light. When he glances into Jim's eyes, he sees something intriguing, something that ignites a fire within him. Is Jim perhaps the long-lost son of Ryder's? Does Ryder harbor homoerotic feelings toward Jim, and use his switchblade as a Freudian substitute for an undersized sexual organ? After all, Red does incorporate smart subtext about the homophobia that was rampant during the 1980s. When Jim is stopped by a construction worker, Ryder positions his switchblade against Jim's crotch to threaten him into silence. Detecting a strange vibe between the driver and passenger, the man looks down and sees only Ryder's clenched fist between Jim's legs. Rather than reading the obvious discontent on the kid's face, which practically screams, "Please help me!" the worker dismisses them out of blatantly undisguised contempt, flinging a passive-aggressive slur in the process.
Perhaps Ryder is simply impressed with the fight and drive evident in his latest target. He's obviously butchered many people over the course of his career as a hitchhiking serial killer, but Jim appears to be the first victim to fight back and get away. While Ryder would never allow his escape to be a permanent victory, it seems to have unlocked an admiration, and possibly a physical attraction, within his otherwise blackened soul. In this respect, the interaction between Ryder and Halsey isn't terribly dissimilar to that of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. Like Laurie, Jim is a symbol of youthful innocence brutally destroyed. He has done nothing to invite this harrowing horror upon himself, apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His only "crime" was trying to do a good deed for someone mistakenly believed to be in need. While he may not wear a mask like Myers or sport burn scars like Freddy Krueger, Ryder is a personification of pure, unadulterated evil. Hauer portrays his titular antagonist as a force of nature: implacable, merciless, omnipresent, and seemingly without motivation. He preys on the kindness of strangers and derives pleasure from their suffering. In fact, Ryder is an even more despicable serial killer than Myers because he even goes as far as to murder children, sparing no one in his insatiable hunger for psychological torment and thirst for blood. In crafting his performance, Hauer seems to have drawn inspiration from Robert Englund's performance as Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's original supernatural slasher masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street, investing Ryder with a sadistic laugh when asked the common question, "What do you want?" and creepy, close-mouthed, enigmatic smile. Like Freddy, Ryder verbally communicates, however minimally, to his victims to instill panic, speaking and dishing out threats of unimaginable pain and mutilation in an almost menacingly soothing whisper. His most striking attribute is his calmness. While Ryder goes about his nefarious business, whether confronting Jim from across a table at a cafe or shooting down a police helicopter and creating a pile-up while nonchalantly dangling a cigarette betwixt his lips, Hauer counterpoints his horrific misdeeds with an utterly placid exterior that indicates Ryder's true nature. He is not some average psychopath purging his hatred for the unjustness of society, bound by the laws of mortal limitations. John Ryder is, for all intents and purposes, the Devil himself. He may wear the flesh of a human being, but his actions and abilities suggest anything but. This is a man who knows where you are every step of the way. He has an innate charisma and trustworthiness that stops motorists in their track and elicits their sympathy, enough to weaken their defenses and open their car doors to him, secure in their belief that he's a harmless middle-aged man simply looking for a ride. And it takes more than a shove from a moving vehicle or a smash through a windshield to keep him down.
Hauer embodies his unstoppable slasher as if he were Michael Myers without the William Shatner mask and with the power of speech. However, he also adds intriguing momentary nuances to Ryder, sporting a pair of eyes that reflect a conflicted, deeply troubled soul, most evidenced in the scene where he lies in bed beside a sleeping Nash. Most bizarrely, Ryder seems to have a death wish, frequently requesting in earnest that Jim put a bullet in his head and reacting with disappointment when he proves too afraid to do so. For Ryder, his pursuit of Jim is a matter of "I kill you, or you kill me." Why that is is left intelligently up to the viewer to decipher. Despite an average frame and reasonably handsome visage, Hauer boasts an imposing presence that permeates the entirety of the film. Even when he's not around physically, you know it's only a matter of time before he re-enters the frame. Every bad thing that happens, every moment of heart-stopping uncertainty, contains his fingerprints. Ryder is part man and part specter, aware of every move that Jim is making, aware of exactly where he's resting and who he's with. He knows he can kill him any time he wants to, and he relishes that unholy power.
As the latest target in Ryder's sights, Howell matches his onscreen opponent with a brilliantly modulated starring performance. When it comes to horror, a story is only as compelling as the dimensionality of its protagonist and antagonist. If only one half of that equation is satisfactorily constructed, the quality of the resulting product is bound to be uneven at best. In The Hitcher, Jim Halsey is equally as ferocious and engaging a hero as Ryder is his would-be slayer. With horror movies that play out like a nightmare, subjecting their protagonist to a grueling journey of nonstop terrorizing, it's crucial that we care about and identify keenly with them. Otherwise, it will feel like we're bearing witness to someone else's nightmare, as opposed to experiencing it vicariously alongside them. As Jim, a poor, inexperienced kid forced to tap into a part of himself he didn't know existed, Howell immediately earns our affection and sympathy. This is a completely different, eminently superior actor to the one featured as Ponyboy Curtis in The Outsiders three years earlier. When casting was initially underway for the role, producers considered more prominent names such as Matthew Modine, Tom Cruise (who starred alongside Howell in The Outsiders), and Emilio Estevez. Based in part on his look, they decided to take a chance on the slender Howell, who at the time was being more selective with his roles and nearly turned this down after hearing the script was a generic thriller. Harmon personally handed Howell a copy which he could not put down, saying he "couldn't believe the things that happened to [his] character in the first 12 pages." That enthusiasm for the role, as well as the prospect of working with Hauer, oozes passionately from Howell's staggering performance. He portrays Jim Halsey's situation as something of a twisted coming-of-age odyssey, detailing his evolution from that of an innocent, gregarious adult young enough to retain his naivete and trust in the genuineness of human nature to a desperate captive gradually losing his sanity at the sadistic hands of an inhumane lunatic.
In general, it's easier for women to emote. Societally, they're expected to be more emotional than men. That's why we have more final women in horror than final men. After all, how many people really want to hear a guy scream and whimper? Jim is part of the more limited latter category, and his conveyances of paralyzing fear and hopelessness are just as raw and achingly credible as those of his female counterparts, his voice quavering with desperation, his eyes widening with an almost deranged exhaustion, his lips parting into a manic grin. Ryder's goal appears to be to mold Jim into a cold-blooded killer like he is, but even when he's handed a clear shot, that humanity that characterizes Jim and distinguishes him from someone like Ryder is unable to wither away completely.
Counterpointing the malice and indecipherable obsession that characterize the relationship between Ryder and Jim is Nash, a waitress at the Longhorn Diner who takes an instant affinity for Jim. When Jim first comes banging on her door after just barely evading a gas station explosion, Nash turns him away, insisting they're closed for another 45 minutes. Once Jim screams his desperation to be let in, banging harder, Nash turns around and looks him in the eye from the opposite end, recognizing his urgency and agreeing to open the door. It's a form of unspoken communication that will soon connect these two dissatisfied symbols of lost innocence. After Jim dials the police and goes to the bathroom to take a sink shower, Nash prepares him a cheeseburger with a side of fries on the house, sensing a kinship with the bruised, bloodied outsider. In addition to showing Nash's kindheartedness through an unprovoked gesture, Red further affords development to her as a supporting character beyond that of "the obvious love interest." Utilizing the power of casual conversation, Red fleshes her out into a small-town girl with big-city dreams. She wants to move to California, but feels tethered to her job as a waitress out of an obligation to her father and cousin, who also work at Longhorn. "We're all sort of... interrelated," she explains to Jim.
Fresh off her performance as the sexually aggressive but internally fragile Stacy Hamilton in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jennifer Jason Leigh provides a warm, comforting presence to counteract Hauer's incessant menace. Enriched with a charming Texan drawl and an openhearted, guileless face, Leigh plays Nash as a world-weary young woman who's all too aware of the types of people who pass through this town, and a police force who couldn't care much less about it. Without knowing Jim on anything resembling a personal level, Leigh communicates trust, compassion, and empathy in her eyes for him, confident in her ability to discern a fellow tortured soul. In a short matter of time, Leigh and Howell settle into a heartwarming, if tragically truncated, romance, one fueled less by overt physical attraction and more by a mutual respect and understanding. Both young adults are outsiders who feel trapped in some way, craving an escape that feels out of their grasp, and neither would tear the wing off a fly. It's through steady eye contact that the chemistry between Howell and Leigh manifests most forcefully. Even when Jim ambushes Nash on a bus, shoves her in the bathroom, covers her mouth, and aims a gun at her head, explaining his ordeal, the trust that emanates from Leigh's eyes is unmistakably authentic. Leigh's most empowering moment of character growth occurs when she saves Jim's life, picking up a revolver and firing a warning shot at two troopers, one of whom might have shot Jim dead had it not been for her intervention. This is a badass woman who stands up for what she believes in and the people she cares about, even if she doesn't know them all that well. If that entails inserting herself in another's ordeal and putting her own life in danger, so be it. It isn't until the end of Leigh's involvement that Nash and Jim are permitted time and space to express their affection for one another intimately, him resting a hand on her cheek and her leaning into it, and it's the strength of their bond that imbues Leigh's final scene with a necessary dose of heartbreaking tragedy.
Cinematographer John Seale captures the austere splendor and terrifying desolation of the Texas desert with a series of extreme wide shots that encompass gargantuan mountains, gray and gothic, a baby blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds, sand-covered hills, barren plains beside the deserted road, an abundance of bushes, and clouds of dust that at times surround Ryder as if to highlight his otherworldly mystique and create the illusion of him almost dissolving right before Jim's astonished eyes. Harmon and Seale use the light of the sun as a symbol for Jim's persistence and hope for a better future. Throughout The Hitcher, beams of sunlight will shine through windows. When Jim reaches his lowest point and positions a pistol below his chin to bring his nightmare to a premature end, the sun gently peaks out from below a large gray cloud as if to remind him that better days await, that even in the ugliest and most hopeless of situations, there is still light at the end of the tunnel, and there is still beauty amid the horror. After staring at and contemplating this symbolic image, Jim puts the gun down and forces himself to push forward and continue fighting, even though suicide would've been the quicker and easier option. Seale and Harmon frequently film the faces of their actors in invasive close-up to accomplish a dual objective: capture the emotional nuances of their characters, and visually depict the suffocating sensation of claustrophobia enveloping Jim. Likewise, editor Frank J. Urioste cuts to insert shots of important or striking details: a blood-red "car ajar" warning on Jim's passenger door, granting him the idea to shove an unbuckled Ryder out of it, Ryder's switchblade dripping with blood after being confiscated from Jim's jacket pocket, and most jaw-dropping of all, Ryder's switchblade positioned directly below Jim's enlarged eye. Following his expulsion from Jim's moving car, Ryder picks himself up off the street, and Seale films his rise using a low-angle shot to foreshadow his preternatural capabilities.
Mark Isham composes a dual score for The Hitcher, one that's serene and soothing to accompany rare instances of peace, triumph, or isolation -- such as when Jim is driving behind a family's station wagon, appreciating the warmth of family togetherness and the blissful innocence of children -- and switching to another that's not particularly memorable like Carpenter's for Halloween or Charles Bernstein's for Nightmare, but is nonetheless appropriately nerve-racking and high-energy when applied to the more action-packed sequences like high-speed chases and police-initiated shootouts.
Harmon allows Red's simple story to play out in a little over a standard hour and a half runtime, making every single moment count. He paces The Hitcher with the expert, deliberate precision of a genre craftsman, slowly enough to invest intimately in his protagonist's deteriorating psyche without numbing the audience to the inevitable follow-up shocker. He exploits the wonders of stillness and silence to build a sense of sustained anticipation and suspense that can be almost legitimately unbearable, never in a juvenile rush to stage the next action-oriented, ear-piercing set piece. Understanding the importance of easing the hooks in viewers' backs every now and again, Harmon carves out instances of downtime to allow the audience to catch their breath after violent confrontations and close calls, immersing us in Jim's rare occasions of peace, like when he walks into a cafe and takes a seat at a booth, or takes a nap in a holding cell. But the genius of Harmon's direction is the way he primes us to always anticipate the unanticipated. If Jim thinks he's free of Ryder's wrath, it's only a matter of time, maybe even seconds, before the maniac returns with that devilish, self-satisfied smirk. Like Jim, we value the oases of calm when they're granted, but we're smart enough to not allow ourselves to get too comfortable. Harmon maintains a breathless momentum, disallowing an ounce of unneeded exposition or superfluous subplot to weigh down the white-knuckle proceedings.
While Harmon stages a couple exhilarating car chases and shootouts between Jim and the police, cleanly and coherently edited by Urioste to strike a balance between bullets-crashing-through-glass chaos and genuine heart-palpitating terror, his most suspenseful set piece is a refreshingly quiet one set inside the supposedly danger-free space of a police station. After waking from a flashback nightmare in his holding cell, Jim leans against his cell door to realize it's been unlocked, the first red flag. Slowly he exits his cell and walks down the hallway, the ominously incessant ringing of a telephone intermixed with incoherent police chatter on the radio. A POV shot mimics Jim's cautious movement and peers into an empty office. No officers are anywhere to be found. The shadow of a door opening stops Jim in his tracks, accompanied by an unpleasant creak. It's not Ryder who steps into frame, but rather a police dog, almost as intimidating. It stops and stares at Jim, who remains motionless. After a moment, the dog calmly proceeds, and so does Jim. As he makes his way down the irrationally deserted corridor, Seale's camera slowly pans right to reveal the dog lovingly licking the blood off the slashed neck of a cop, a blasphemous juxtaposition of the unconditional love of one of God's creatures and the brutality of one of His most unholy abominations.
Though The Hitcher contains considerably more gore than Halloween, Harmon adopts Carpenter's directorial decision to leave the majority of the slashing off-camera and to the imagination of the audience. Much like in the aforementioned police station massacre sequence, the violence is demonstrated more in the aftermath or in the repulsed facial reaction of Jim. Beginning with the murder of the original driver, only his car is shown, stranded on the side of the road. The viciousness of his killing, namely the removal of his limbs and head, is expressed bluntly and tautly in a verbal confession (more of a brag) by the killer himself. When Jim stumbles across the station wagon owned by the family he was trying to warn, it too is now stranded. He gets out of his car and slowly wanders over, peering into the back window. Harmon doesn't permit us a look inside. That's a monstrosity offered only to Jim. What we get is an insert shot of blood dripping on Jim's shoe, which, combined with Jim running back to his car and vomiting, paints a grim enough picture of the brutalities inflicted on every last member of the family. Following the reveal shot of the cop whose neck blood is being dog-licked, Harmon displays the corpses of the other ones, all drenched in blood. The most graphic kill occurs when Ryder drives beside a police car that Jim has hijacked and shoots the two officers in the neck. As expected from bullets crashing through glass windows and puncturing flesh, it's loud and bloody, but only briefly shown. Harmon doesn't linger on the carnage as much as the horrifying realization of what it means for Jim, whom the state already assumes to be guilty.
The most harrowing and inventive kill, which doubles as the centerpiece of the movie, is assigned to Nash. Due to a mix of her likable and sympathetic personality and the excruciating agony of her demise, it hurts almost as much to witness as it is for Nash to endure. After being abducted from a motel room by Ryder, her mouth is gagged and her arms and legs are tied between a Mack truck and its tow hitch. Ryder waits in the truck for Jim, threatening to tear her in half unless Jim puts a stop to him once and for all. It's a no-win situation because if Jim or the police shoot Ryder, his foot will slip off the clutch. Either way, hope is dwindling for her survival. Now Jim has someone's life besides his own to agonize over, maybe one he considers even more important. As Jim and Ryder converse inside the truck, Harmon raises the emotional stakes to the uppermost, emphasizing Nash's physical and psychological torment. Urioste and Seale craft an excruciating level of dread by cutting back and forth between close-ups of Nash's bloodied hands, Ryder's foot easing tauntingly off the clutch pedal, and a tire consequently inching forward. When Ryder finally releases the clutch, Harmon strategically cuts away at the moment of impact. A true testament to the visceral and intellectual power of this emotionally eviscerating scene is late celebrity film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's assertion that Harmon displayed Nash's dismemberment in graphic detail, and their ironic loathing as a result. As experienced as they were in the art of suggestive filmmaking, both critics truly believed their eyes were assaulted with more than they actually were. If that doesn't warrant a self-administered pat on the back from Harmon, I don't know what does.
As for the stereotypically unhelpful Texan state troopers who constitute a large portion of the cast, the only one who stands out from the pack -- and is given an official name in the bargain -- is Captain Esteridge (Jeffrey DeMunn) for the degree of sympathy and understanding he affords Jim. All the other members of the force are mostly interchangeable, driven by a mutual desire to either arrest Jim or kill him in deluded retribution for Ryder's crimes against their own. Which brings me back to a previous question: how has Ryder convinced the entire state of Texas that Jim is the man responsible for the string of cross-country murders? As an interrogation officer points out in a refreshing moment of police intelligence, any fool could see this kid is innocent. So why are the majority of them so certain of his guilt and lusting for his head? Likewise, how does Ryder possess the ability to know exactly where Jim is at all times and materialize at exactly that location? What is the reason for his obsession with this, as he himself puts it, "useless waste"? If his intention is to transform Jim into a younger clone of himself, then why does he desire to be his victim? If you view The Hitcher from a logical standpoint, you will be bombarded with plot holes. Approach it the way it's meant to be -- as a terrifyingly irrational nightmare translated from subconscious to celluloid -- and it works in spades. (As for Nash's convenient appearance on a bus that Jim has just boarded, and her conveniently timed decision to walk to the bathroom located conveniently beside Jim's seat, that I have a harder time defending on any level.)
The ending is somewhat protracted. Red probably could've wrapped the story up after John's arrest. The decision to reveal that as a false climax and add one final death duel between his leads feels a bit tacked on. It also muddies the waters regarding John Ryder's inner nature, e.g., he's able to hurl himself from a prison bus and crash through the windshield of Jim's stolen cruiser, and survive ejection from said windshield as well as being run down by said cruiser, but a couple bullets from a shotgun and he's as dead as any physically limited human being? Like a lot of what's come before in The Hitcher, it doesn't make much sense. Was John Ryder the Devil disguised in human flesh and presentable clothes? Or was he a mortal man with a higher-than-average degree of evil intelligence and physical resilience? By the end credits, Red and Harmon don't seem to want to commit to an answer. On the flip side, what matters most is they provide a much-deserved catharsis for their tortured protagonist, and by extension the audience who've undergone this journey with him, climaxing with a stunning final shot: as Jim leans against the cruiser, celebrating his long overdue freedom from and triumph over evil with a stress-relieving (never mind cancer-causing) cigarette, Seale silhouettes him and the car against an orange morning sky. A reminder that at the end of even your worst, most stressful nightmare lies the beautiful, optimistic luminosity of a brand new day. And what better way to enjoy the beauty of life than to take a brief plunge into the bowels of hell?
Don't get caught up in picking apart the anti-logic of the nightmare Red and Harmon have constructed. That's the whole point of nightmares. By design, they proudly turn their backs on the imagination-restrictive rules of physics and science. If you're the type of "sophisticated" filmgoer who steadfastly refuses to tolerate such a breach of logic (cough snobs), steer clear of this hitcher. For the more open-minded horror buffs who appreciate the visceral appeal and boundless imagination on which the genre is built, sit back, relax (but not too cockily), buckle your seat belts, and just enjoy the ride. Unlike Jim Halsey, you won't regret it.
6.9/10
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