The Hitcher was by no means a classic of horror. It was well made and well acted and original for the most part, but it never grabbed the following of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Friday the 13th, which is a shame to be honest. It was one of my favorite horror movies of all time mainly because it is one of the few that actually got to me. It scared me; it kept me literally on the edge of my seat with no clue as to what will happen next. That is rare for me and movies.

The Hitcher stars C. Thomas Howell as a guy whose name is unimportant to me. He had a name, I guarantee, but I cannot remember it for the life of me and am too lazy to IMDb it. Anyway, he plays a guy who is being paid to drive a car across country. It is a long and boring drive and he was told not to take riders, but it is a long and boring drive and he notices a hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer) out in the rain. He should have listened to his boss. The hitcher quickly reveals himself to be a psycho who has thus far murdered everyone who has picked him up and plans the same for poor C. Tommy, but C. Tommy has a will to live, kicks Rutger out of a moving car, and the chase is on.

While the plot of the movie is by no means deep, it does serve as the vehicle we are strapped into for the rest of the ride. This is not a movie made for the story, it was made for those moments that make up the story. What this movie does so well is take us back to an era where special effects were special and not constant. Never does a killing take place on screen, and that is where this movie gets its power. We never know exactly just how insane Rutger is until the famous truck scene near the end. The rest is told to us through the actors' faces and not on-screen gore.

I have not seen the new one and am basing every word of this on reviews of the remake. I have read numerous accounts of the “police station” scene and I can tell you that the original is done with much more style.

C. Thomas Howell is suspected of the murders that the hitcher has committed due to the latter’s very clever frame up. C. Tommy gets arrested and falls asleep in his jail cell. The scene is reassuring because the hitcher cannot get to Tommy while in police custody, right? Tommy wakes up and his cell door is open. He slowly leaves his cell and wanders through a police station filled with dead cops, but we do not see the cops. We see Tommy seeing the cops. We see blood on the walls and desks and phones, but no cops. The scene is amazing in its strength because somehow this psycho killed an entire station and C. Tommy is supposed to beat that.