When C Thomas Howell utters the words "My mother told me to never do this", you know Rutger Hauer isn't going to give hitchhikers a good name. Once in the car, Rutger proves the ultimate backseat driver in this cruelly exciting film which, as the interviews on the double disc DVD reveal, no-one is quite sure what genre it belongs to.
TECHNICAL FEATURES
Picture Both the Cannon and Warner Bros video releases of this film looked uniformly grubby so this near pristine picture transfer is a real joy to see, not least because it's also in widescreen.
Sound The new 5.1 sound mix does a great job of opening up the old Dolby surround encoding, especially during the explosive helicopter scene.
Disc One Special Features
Audio Commentary Director Robert Harmon and scriptwriter Eric Red clearly haven't seen the movie for a while because they lapse into quite a few periods of silence while they watch. In between though, there are some interesting anecdotes on how they managed to stretch the tight budget.
When the producer asked Harmon what would happen if they didn't get the one-take-only helicopter crash, Harmon reassured him that plan B would be swung into action. Of course there was no plan B... What's most interesting is the amount of rear projection used for the driving scenes and how good it looks after all these years.
Scene Specific Audio Commentaries: Robert Harmon, Rutger Hauer, C Thomas Howell, composer Mark Isham, producer Edward S Feldman, cinematographer John Seale and Eric Red all have short commentaries in this section.
Highlights include Rutger talking about the film's fairytale elements, while Harmon reveals he used to do photography for Playboy. C Thomas Howell is remarkably frank about his career and Mark Isham discusses composing his first score using a sampler.
Disc Two Special Features
Documentary So what kind of movie is "The Hitcher"? This 38-minute documentary opens with the cast suggesting suitable genres, including action, thriller, horror and comedy. Rutger doesn't mess about though, describing the movie as "a mindf***"!
The development of the film is explored quite thoroughly and there are plenty of behind-the-scenes shots. C Thomas Howell again proves to be an open and self-deprecating interviewee, while Rutger charms with entertaining quips.
Short Movies Robert Harman used his own money to make a half-hour police thriller called "China Lake", which became his calling card to get into the film industry. It won him the director's job for "The Hitcher" and here you can see this is a surprisingly polished feature, given the budget restrictions. Harmon also provides a commentary, which will be of interest to anyone wanting to make their own short.
Also in this section is a recent black and white short film, co-directed by Rutger Hauer. It's a far more subdued affair than Harmon's and is reminiscent of Rutger's arthouse days in "The Legend of the Holy Drinker". Rutger also provides a commentary and talks about his directing ambitions.
Additional Extra Features Also on disc two are seven screenplay samples including two deleted scenes, a trailer, a teaser and cast and crew filmographies.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Chapters: 24
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Tracks: Multiple Languages
Subtitles: English and multiple languages
Captions: None
Menus: Animated, with menacing music
Special Features Subtitles None of the special features come with subtitles.
"The Hitcher" DVD is out to buy in the UK from Monday 14th July 2003.
This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.
