Blade Runner

“It’s just like everything that is awful about the city, but at the same time, everything that is fascinating about it…and this, in many ways, is a futurist projection—it’s not so much escapist, it’s a projection of what life will be like in every major metropolis 40 years from now.” – Philip K. Dick, 1982

Big Brother is watching you. The Eye in the Sky. There Are Eyes Everywhere. 2016…or 2019? In this day and age, does three years matter? In 1982, however, the difference was cavernous and 2019 a lifetime away. The past has finally caught up with the present…or has the present finally caught up with the past? One of the first images shown in Blade Runner (1982): an extreme close-up of an eye – encapsulates all of this, for we are living in paranoid times. We are living in Philip K. Dick’s world. This film was based on his 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He has become one of the most widely-adapted science fiction authors and with good reason. He crafted paranoid tales populated by damaged characters trying to figure out what it means to be human. What were once considered paranoid delusions have become tactile realities.

One of the first things that struck me about Blade Runner is its obsessive attention to detail. It is virtually impossible to take it all in upon an initial viewing. Only after watching it several times was I able to properly appreciate how fully-realized the world of Ridley Scott’s film is – a tangible future that “you can see and touch,” the director said in an interview, “it makes you a little uneasier because you feel it’s just round the corner.” This vivid world, designed by Syd Mead and Lawrence G. Paull with special effects by Douglas Trumbull, is the backdrop to a detective story. Ex-cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is brought out of retirement to find and kill four replicants, artificial people that are forbidden to be on Earth, but this is merely a launching pad for Scott to address a myriad of fascinating themes – predominantly, as with the novel, what it means to be human.

The first image is an establishing shot of a hellish cityscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. The next shot goes deeper into the city of Los Angeles as giant plumes of fire occasionally erupt from factories. The camera penetrates deeper into the landscape to finally locate the massive twin structures of the Tyrell buildings. Finally, the camera literally travels down to street level: neon signs, futuristic attire and lighted umbrellas are only a few of the images presented before finding Deckard reading a newspaper. This opening traces a detailed path from an ordered city on a grand scale…to the chaotic streets on an individual level.

The L.A. of Blade Runner consists of three distinct layers. The top one consists of huge, monolithic, pyramidal skyscrapers that dominate the landscape and contain the ordered offices of Tyrell. The middle layer represents middle class residential areas seen mostly as interiors like Deckard’s apartment. Finally, there is the bottom layer: crowded, garbage-strewn streets filled with the dregs of society – a pastiche of subcultures of humanity. These three layers are tied together by flying cars, elevators and a huge, hovering ad display ship that constantly advertises off-world propaganda.

The top layer is represented by Tyrell’s offices where Deckard runs the “Voight-Kampff” test on the latest replicant, Rachel (Sean Young). It takes place in an immense room populated by massive support columns that suggest strength. It is sparsely furnished with expensive accoutrements that convey wealth. The room is a mixture of Third Reich splendor and film noir style, as represented by Rachel with her angular dress and severely swept hairstyle: one half Nazi secretary, one half femme fatale. The Tyrell offices represent the pinnacle of this world’s tasteful opulence. According to Mead in an interview from 1982:

“The pyramid is very high tech compared to the rest of the movie, very sleek, a carefully arranged textural megalith. The pyramid is set in the middle of what was called ‘Hades.’ An endless plain, like the chemical plant area of New Jersey…It is the ultimate visual statement of where our society is headed in the future.”

The middle layer is a claustrophobic collection of canyons of buildings where the less fortunate live with some providing giant advertising space while a flying advertisement extols the virtues of living off-world: “The chance to begin again in the golden land of opportunity and adventure.” L.A. is presented as a city of ads: Coca-Cola, Atari and Pan-Am are surrounded by neon-like Japanese fast food joints. These ads are familiar objects that we recognize within this strange, chaotic environment. Deckard’s journey to the police station in a flying car gives us another chance to see the stunning cityscape with its collision of diversified architectural styles. As Scott said in an interview, “We’re in a city which is in a state of overkill, of snarled-up energy, where you can no longer remove a building because it costs far more than constructing one in its place.” He exemplifies this with the retro 1940s style décor of the police station. The old architecture wasn’t torn down but rather built on top of and around.

The climactic showdown between Deckard and head replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) takes place in the famous L.A. landmark, the Bradbury Building, which Scott transforms it from its once beautiful, ornately designed wrought-iron railings and cage elevators into noir nightmare – a deserted, dilapidated space strewn with garbage and debris. Deckard is chased through room after room by Batty in a harrowing sequence that resembles a horror film as the latter taunts and torments the former.

The street scenes are the most fascinating aspect of this filmic world. The first shot we get of it is the camera moving through the crowded, noisy streets to find Deckard waiting for his turn at a noodle stand. It is populated by a colorful assortment of people – punks, elderly people and so on, each with a distinctive look. He’s just one of many people in this city until he’s summoned by the cops to visit his old boss, Captain Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh).

The scene where Deckard chases renegade replicant Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) through the busy streets really shows off the bottom layer in all of its anarchic splendor. Scott orchestrates an audio/visual assault on the senses as Deckard fights his way through crowds. The director also subverts the norm of always keeping the protagonist in focus by continually obscuring Deckard with smoke, people and vehicles. The populace is a fascinating collection of ethnicities and subcultures resulting in one of the first truly multicultural future cities. The soundtrack is also a cacophony of vehicle horns, people talking and the incessant chatter of street signs that adds to the sense of urgency as he cuts through all of this confusion to find Zhora.

The L.A. of Blade Runner isn’t some sterile futureworld but a lived-in reality that feels like it existed before the film began and will continue to do so after it ends. All of this painstaking attention to detail immerses us in this universe and it grounds the characters in a tangible experience. It also transports us immediately to 2019 Los Angeles, difficult to do in a futuristic science fiction film; a lot of explanation is usually done up front so as not to confuse the audience. After a brief preamble textual scrawl, however, Scott drops us right in and expects the viewer to keep up and buy into the world he’s created.

“Looking back on what I saw, I realized that we are in an information decade. Information is the life blood, the metabolism of the modern world. And that basically people will be going in to see Blade Runner as information junkies.” – Philip K. Dick, 1982

We are living in Philip K. Dick’s future. Try making eye contact with someone on the bus or train. They are buried in their cell phone or iPod or some other electronic device. We are under constant electronic surveillance, be it cameras or remote controlled drones. The answer to what it means to be human may appear to be wildly different now than it was 34 years ago but it is quite the same. It is our species’ humanity that’s become buried beneath technology; Blade Runner was a warning that clearly was not heeded.

SOURCES

Kennedy, Harlan. “21^st Century Nervous Breakdown.” Film Comment. July-August 1982.

Lee, Gwen and Doris E. Sauter. “Thinker of Antiquity.” Starlog. January 1990.

Mitchell, Blake and James Ferguson. “Syd Mead: Futurist and Production Designer Talks about Ridley Scott’s Newest SF Thriller Bladerunner.” Fantastic Films. November 1982.

Nighthawks

In many respects, Nighthawks (1981) is an inferior variation on The French Connection (1971) with two New York City cops tracking down a criminal mastermind in the mean streets only replacing international drug smuggling with international terrorism. In fact, Nighthawks was originally intended to be a sequel to The French Connection II (1975), but was shelved with Gene Hackman decided not to reprise his character from the first two films. You could make a list of the ways in which William Friedkin’s film is superior to Nighthawks but it has Rutger Hauer going for it, which is a big plus, and he commands the screen in every scene he’s in as a Carlos the Jackal-esque terrorist. If this movie is a French Connection rip-off then it’s a very entertaining one with plenty of exciting action sequences and a fascinating, tension-filled cat and mouse game at its core.

We are introduced to our protagonists – police detectives Deke DaSilva (Sylvester Stallone) and Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) – on decoy duty as they bust a bunch of muggers. Already the subpar French Connection aspects become apparent as Deke chases one of the muggers onto an elevated train platform but not before engaging in some cheesy tough guy-speak. If this opening scene wasn’t a good enough example of Deke and Matt’s skills as crackerjack cops, we get another one where they break up a drug den and the latter freaks out when one of the crooks tries to pay him off. It gives Billy Dee Williams the chance to do some intense yelling but also gives him a nice moment when he spots a scared little kid among the drug peddlers and that’s the reality check that cools him off.

Meanwhile, in London, England, international terrorist Wulfgar (Hauer) blows up a department store (not before interacting with a beautiful young clerk played by Catherine Mary Stewart no less). In a nicely orchestrated sequence, he’s set-up by one of his own and with ruthless efficiency kills three cops. He escapes to Paris where he hooks up with a loyal cohort known as Shakka (Persis Khambatta) and we get an amusing bit where he threatens a plastic surgeon to do some work on his face and make look “beautiful” before heading to New York City after realizing that he’s become too high-profile in Europe.

Back at police headquarters, Deke and Matt have been summoned and told by their boss (played by consummate New York character actor Joe Spinell), who’s tired of their loose cannon antics, that they’ve been reassigned to a terrorist taskforce known as the Anti Terrorist Action Command squad (or A.T.A.C.) in conjunction with Interpol. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with our heroes who’d rather be on the streets busting drug dealers and other low-lifes. When they voice their protests it gives their boss a chance to cut loose and chew them out in the grand tradition of the genre: “Understand this, sucker! You’re a cop and you’ll go where you’re assigned!” Normally, this would be eye-rolling, cliché dialogue, but Joe Spinell, god bless him, delivers it with conviction.

Soon, Deke and Matt find themselves being taught counter-terrorist techniques by Peter Hartman (Nigel Davenport), a Brit and the head of A.T.A.C. He stresses that in dealing with Wulfgar they must be ruthless and kill him without hesitation – something that goes against their training as police officers. Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams play well off each other in this scene as their characters mess with each other while Hartman drones on. They’d rather be on the streets but he makes a convincing argument for them absorbing all of this information. The more they know about Wulfgar the better their chances are of finding and stopping him.

It is significant to note that Nighthawks features Stallone before he became a successful action star and he still had one foot in serious acting. You can see him mustering all the gravitas he can for the role and this is especially evident in the scenes he has with Hauer who forces Stallone to raise his game. Billy Dee Williams was also a big deal at the time, coming off high-profile films like Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Mahogany (1975), Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The actor brings his trademark easy-going charm to the role. Stallone and Williams are very believable as partners and this is conveyed in the ease and familiarity of how they interact with each other. Deke is the headstrong one while Matt is more rational and they complement each other well.

Wulfgar would be the first of three memorable antagonistic roles Rutger Hauer would play in the 1980s, along with Blade Runner (1982) and The Hitcher (1986). Each character is distinctive as he makes them fascinating due in large part to his skill as an actor and his charisma. It is also the way Hauer carries himself. In Nighthawks, Wulfgar can turn on the charm when he needs to and then become ruthless in an instant. Hauer portrays his character as a cold-hearted sociopath intent on high-profile acts of terrorism. I like that the movie shows Wulfgar doing his homework – reviewing not just the international dignitaries of his next target but also Hartman and the members of A.T.A.C., in particular, Deke. At times, you can tell that Hauer is having fun with the role, like in the scene where Wulfgar commandeers a cable car full of people and after warning them about the lethal nature of Shakka (“Do not underestimate her because she’s a woman, she has no maternal instincts.”), he compliments one of the hostage’s hat.

To prepare for the role, Sylvester Stallone and producer Martin Poll spent weeks out on patrol with decoy cops, police officers that make themselves available to being robbed or mugged and then backup arrives and arrests the crooks. Actor and producer had to sign releases not to sue if they were shot or killed. “We stayed in the backup vehicles,” Poll said. He found that many decoy cops were divorced, like Deke in the movie: “They’re out late, and it’s dangerous, and after awhile the wives get tired of waiting to see whether the men are coming home or not.” Poll remembered that decoy cops faced a lot of danger on the job. One of the men they went out with had his throat cut: “He got to the hospital, they sewed him up, and about eight weeks later, he was shot and killed.”

When it came to casting Wulfgar, Poll’s son told his father about a Dutch actor named Rutger Hauer that he saw in Paul Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange (1977). Poll saw it and had Hauer fly to California to meet with him and Stallone. Within a minute, Poll and Stallone knew Hauer was right for the role. At the time, the actor had gotten an offer to appear in The Sphinx, a big budget Hollywood movie for more money but he found the premise of Nighthawks and the character he was to play more interesting and chose it instead. To prepare for the part, the actor read “anything that had been written on terrorist groups operating in Europe.” He was drawn to the character of Wulfgar because “I love a character who says, ‘I’m bad. You understand?’ I think it’s good to admit things about yourself, to come out with them.”

The production of Nighthawks was rife with problems. Just over a week into principal photography, Poll fired director Gary Nelson (The Black Hole) and hired Bruce Malmuth. He had been directing commercials for years and, thanks to his friendship with director John Avildsen, befriended Stallone during the early stages of Rocky (1976). The actor was impressed with his work and asked him to take over for Nelson. The studio agreed with this decision and told Poll, “It’s your picture, just don’t stop shooting.”

According to Hauer, since Rocky, Stallone had made a few commercially unsuccessful movies and “felt it was important for this one to be good. And he made everybody around him know it.” During principal photography, Hauer and Stallone had an antagonistic relationship that mirrored the one on-screen. In the scene where Deke and Matt chase Wulfgar through the New York subway system, Hauer consistently outran “fitness fanatic” Stallone, who, according to Hauer, “trained by running up the staircases of office buildings.”

Further along into production, some of the residents of Roosevelt Island didn’t want the filmmakers shooting on the tramway that connected the island with Manhattan. An injunction was granted and the production was forced to shut down while the studio went to court. The judge ruled in favor of the studio and filming continued. Stallone decided to do most of his own stunts, including a dangerous one that saw him suspended 242 feet in the air above the East River from a 1/8 inch steel cable. The day before, he saw a man jump off the bridge to his death. “I saw that, and had to go up the next day. There was a fireboat down below with two divers in it. I made the mistake of calling them ‘lifeguards.’ It was explained to me that they were not lifeguards. They were there to retrieve my body, if necessary.”

Problems continued into post-production. According to Stallone, the studio didn’t believe that “urban terrorism would ever happen in New York thus felt the story was far-fetched.” He has said that the studio lost faith in the movie “and cut it to pieces. What was in the missing scenes was extraordinary acting by Rutger Hauer, Lindsay Wagner, and the finale was a blood fest that rivaled the finale of Taxi Driver. But it was a blood fest with a purpose.” Wagner said at the time of the film’s release, “Sly and I had some powerful scenes together. But the picture was too long, and they wanted to keep the action moving. So our scenes together were cut.”

Nighthawks was not well-received by critics at the time of its release. In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “It is particularly helped by the performance of Rutger Hauer, a Dutch actor who makes a startling impression as a cold-blooded fiend, and Sylvester Stallone, from whom less is definitely more.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Nighthawks is so moronically written and directed, so entirely without wit or novelty, that there is plenty of time to wonder about its many missing explanations.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote that the film “has a dirty job to do and does it. That is not an endorsement. Thumbscrews and cattle prods are real good at what they do, too.” The Washington Post’s Gary Arnold wrote, “In order to facilitate a grandstanding, harebrained heroic role assigned to Sylvester Stallone, the filmmakers brush off every opportunity for intelligent dramatization and authentic suspense that the plot would seem to possess.”

Nighthawks certainly has its share of exciting action sequences, like an intense chase on a subway platform and a tense cable car rescue where Deke meets Wulfgar face-to-face and is suspended precariously above the East River. The movie is a fast-paced thriller that not only harkens back to cop procedurals from the 1970s, like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) but also looks ahead to the action movies of the ‘80s that Stallone would help popularize. One can’t help but lament the movie that could have been before he and the studio got their editorial hands all over it, gutting it into the entertaining but ultimately subpar French Connection wannabe that is the final product. It is a testimony to the material and the performances of the cast that the compromised version is as good as it is, surviving the myriad of production problems to become the movie that its fans know and love.

SOURCES

Bennetts, Leslie. “Bringing a New Dimension to Badness.” The New York Times. April 19, 1981.

Chase, Chris. “At the Movies.” The New York Times. April 10, 1981.

Day, Maggie. “The Start of a Rocky Film Career.” Chicago Tribune. April 13, 1981.

Ebert, Roger. “Interview with Sylvester Stallone.” Chicago Sun-Times. July 13, 1980.

Hauer, Rutger with Patrick Quinlan. All Those Moments. HarperCollins. 2007.

Moriarty. “Round One with Sylvester Stallone Q &A.” Ain’t-It-Cool-News. December 3, 2006.

Thomas, Bob. “Lindsay Loves Move to Film.” Globe and Mail. June 15, 1981.

The Hitcher

It was the film no one wanted to make. It became the film no one wanted to see. When The Hitcher came out in 1986, it barely made a dent in the box office and what few critics did see the film, hated it for the unrelenting sadism and brutality that occurred with seemingly no rhyme or reason. The film was quickly relegated to home video hell and doomed to obscurity. And then a curious thing happened. The Hitcher gradually began to take on a second life through word of mouth, spawned by the riveting performance of Rutger Hauer, the actor who played the frightening yet charismatic antagonist. The film, much like its villain, is a nasty piece of work that doesn’t care if you like it or not – it just wants to scare the living hell out of you and I would argue that it does so with a refreshing simplicity. The Hitcher doesn’t beg to be psychoanalyzed – it is something to experience in all of its white-knuckled intensity. The film has gone to inspire films like Jeepers Creepers (2001) and The Forsaken (2001) and spawn a vastly inferior sequel and remake.

Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is driving a car for someone else across the country en route to San Diego. We meet him traveling along a deserted stretch of highway out in the middle of barren desolate terrain buffeted by mountains somewhere in Texas. As night gradually becomes very early morning, Jim struggles to stay awake. At one point, he actually drifts off and nearly drives headlong into a truck. It begins to rain heavily and he spots a lone figure on the side of the road. Ignoring the advice his mother once told him, Jim stops for the hitchhiker – a decision he will come to regret.

The man introduces himself as John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) and right from the get-go something doesn’t seem right about him. He doesn’t tell Jim where he’s going and when they pass a car on the side of the road, Ryder grabs Jim’s leg startling him so that they don’t stop. When Jim tells Ryder to get out, he ignores him and instead tells the young man that the car they just passed belonged to a man who also gave him a ride but he didn’t get far. Ryder says with a laugh that makes us and Jim uneasy, “I cut off his legs and his arms and his head, and I’m going to do the same to you.” Ryder says this last bit with an almost bored indifference as if he were reciting a shopping list.

Ryder proceeds to hold Jim at knifepoint and plays excruciating head games with the young man, including forcing him to say the words, “I want to die.” Fortunately, Jim manages to push Ryder out of the car and drive off. He thinks that he’s free and clear, that he’ll never see this creepy psychopath again. However, this isn’t the last time Jim will see Ryder – it’s only the beginning of a nightmarish journey. Ryder proceeds to stalk Jim, making his life a living hell as he torments the young man in all sorts of sadistic ways, like ramming his car with a pickup truck or framing him for several murders that he in fact committed or nasty little things like putting a severed finger in his food at a diner.

Jim is forced to literally fight for his life as he tries desperately to escape this madman. Along the way, he enlists the help of Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a beautiful young waitress at a diner, and the local cops but to no avail. Ryder is like a force of nature that will not be denied and it’s up to Jim to stop him. Most of the film plays out like a cruel game of cat and mouse as Ryder pushes Jim to the brink of madness.

C. Thomas Howell is good as a young man trapped in a terrifying situation. He is able to convey just the right amount of sweaty desperation as his character tries to figure out a way of this state of affairs. With younger-than-he-looks features and that reedy voice, Howell is well-cast as a naive twentysomething who is forced to grow up real fast and do things he would never have dreamed of doing before. Up to that point in his career, Howell was known mostly as a Teen Beat poster boy with sympathetic roles in films like The Outsiders (1983) and director Robert Harmon uses this image to make Howell instantly sympathetic so that we care about what happens to his character. As the film progresses, Jim gradually comes apart at the seams while Ryder gets calmer and calmer – not at all the stereotypical psycho and his victim. Both actors get to play against type which makes them so interesting to watch.

Along with Wulfgar in Nighthawks (1980) and Roy Batty in Blade Runner (1982), John Ryder is one of Hauer’s signature roles. He has such a fascinating screen presence and infuses his character with a casual menace that is something to behold. He exudes an almost Zen-like calmness that is strangely unsettling. He has one of those dangerous smiles that on the surface seems inviting but is actually quite threatening. Hauer plays Ryder as an enigmatic force of nature. We are never told his backstory or find out why he’s doing this to Jim. These things aren’t important because the film exists entirely in the present. Even though Hauer doesn’t have all that much screen time, his presence dominates the film because when he does appear, he is so charismatic that you can’t take your eyes off him. Throughout it all, the actor gives Ryder a genial grin but it’s those eyes of his that tell a different story, one of madness. Unbeknownst to Hauer, during filming, Howell found him “frightening, intimidating, and that he was in a constant state of fear, almost as if he really was Jim Halsey and I really was John Ryder.” It certainly translates on the screen and makes the film better for it.

I always wondered if most of the film is a nightmare that Jim experiences and that his dream state starts when he nods off at the beginning of the film with Ryder as a grinning boogeyman, the 1980s answer to Robert Mitchum’s evil preacher in The Night of the Hunter (1955). Ryder seems to magically appear just when Jim begins to feel a tiny bit safe. Interestingly, Jim also dreams while holed up in a jail cell and when he awakes it feels like he’s still dreaming, that none of what is happening is real. In retrospect, Hauer has said of his character, “To me he doesn’t exist. He’s just a ghost that comes out of the desert.” Another theory that has been put out there is that Jim is schizophrenic and that Ryder is actually a split personality with Jim, in reality, doing all of the killing. This is one of the things that elevates The Hitcher above your typical hack-and-slash horror film from the 1980s – it is open to interpretation because it refuses to provide in easy answers.

Director Robert Harmon certainly knows how to ratchet up the tension when required, like in the scene where Jim wakes up in a seemingly empty police station only to find everyone in it dead. The opening scene between Jim and Ryder also crackles with intensity as the psycho nonchalantly threatens the young man. Eric Red wrote the screenplay and this was the follow-up to the one he wrote for Near Dark (1987). Both films are set in desolate Texas landscapes with protagonists thrust into nightmarish worlds that they must try and escape from. Red has a real knack for exploring extreme behavior that offers glimpses into the darkest parts of our souls. For a film that has such a notorious reputation, people tend to forget that The Hitcher isn’t all that gory. Even its most shocking set piece largely happens off-screen but, much like with the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the use of sound and our imagination fills in everything else to horrifying effect.

When he was 20-years-old, New York City-based writer Eric Red made a short film entitled, “Gunman’s Blues” in the hopes of getting the opportunity to direct a feature-length film. When no offers came, he moved from New York to Austin, Texas in 1983, taking a drive-away car cross-country (just like Jim in the film). During the journey, Red had a lot of time to think and became inspired by The Doors song, “Riders on the Storm.” He found that the “elements of the song – a killer on the road in a storm plus the cinematic feel of the music – would make a terrific opening for a film.” According to Hauer, Red had Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in mind when he wrote the part of John Ryder. Interestingly, the screenwriter also felt that the character should have an electronic voice box. For seven months, he drove a cab and wrote the screenplay for The Hitcher.

After it was completed, Red sent a letter to several Hollywood producers asking if he could send them a copy of his script for The Hitcher. His letter concluded: “It (the story) grabs you by the guts and does not let up and it does not let go. When you read it, you will not sleep for a week. When the movie is made, the country will not sleep for a week.” Script development executive David Bombyk received a copy of Red’s letter and was intrigued by the description of the film. Red sent him a script that ran approximately 190 pages in length (one page traditionally equals one minute of screen time). By all accounts, the original script was not for the faint of heart: an entire family was slaughtered in their station wagon; an eyeball was discovered inside a hamburger; a woman was tied to a truck and a pole and then torn in half; there was a decapitation, as well as several slashings, shootings and car crashes. A big fan of horror films, Red has said that his favorite scene in the script is when the woman is torn apart.

In its original form, Bombyk found the script to be “extremely brutal and extremely gory,” but he and personal manager Kip Ohman (who later became co-producers of the film) also saw in it “a level of challenge, intensity and poetry.” In addition, Ohman described the script as “a suspense Hitchcockian-type thriller.” Bombyk and Ohman were worried about getting it in good enough shape to show their bosses in order to prove to them that it was more than an exploitation film. Bombyk worked with Red via several long distance phone calls to Texas and eventually the writer moved to Los Angeles. Red agreed to work with Ohman on the script until it was ready to be shown to the powers that be. The two men spent six months reworking the script, removing most of what Ohman felt was repetitive violence.

Bombyk brought a revised, toned down version of the script to his boss, producer Eric Feldman and his partner Charles Meeker. Feldman had cut his teeth in the movie biz shepherding a diverse collection of films like Six Pack (1982), Hot Dog... the Movie (1984), Witness (1985), and Explorers (1985). They liked the script but wondered, “how could we manage to translate it to the screen without making a slasher movie?” Meeker said. Feldman and Meeker decided to come on board as executive producers. At this time, Bombyk had also given a copy of the revised script to David Madden, a production executive for 20th Century Fox. Within a few days, Madden called back and told them that the script was “terrific.” However, the studio wasn’t comfortable with the subject matter, but they felt that the writing was unique and interesting enough to give the producers a letter-of-intent to distribute The Hitcher. This would allow them to get financing and then once filming was completed, the studio would reimburse them for the budget.

The producers went looking for an inexpensive director. Still photographer-turned-cameraman Robert Harmon was given a copy of the script by his agent but thought it was just another script – that is, until he listened to a series of messages left by his agent on his answering machine encouraging him to read it. Harmon read the script and early the next morning called his agent and told him that he wanted to do it. In February 1984, the director met with the producers to talk about the project. He recalled, “Even the exact actions that remained in the script were described in much bloodier and gorier detail.” The producers were impressed with Harmon and the fact that he also envisioned the film as a Hitchcockian thriller. However, he objected to the eyeball in the hamburger scene and never planned to show the poor girl getting ripped in half.

Fox ultimately rejected the project over the size of the budget and saw it as a “straight-out horror movie.” Madden also admitted that he would have “argued to soften the movie. There were some people at the studio who thought it was pretty gross.” Feldman and Meeker optioned the film themselves, paying Red $25,000. Major studios like Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers passed on it, as did smaller ones like Orion Pictures and New World Pictures. Reportedly, many executives liked the script but balked at the girl being ripped in half scene. At least two studios were willing to consider making The Hitcher but only if Harmon was replaced. However, to their credit, the producers had faith in the director and stuck by him.

Independent producer Donna Dubrow had heard about The Hitcher while working on another film and to her it sounded like “Duel with a person.” When she went on to work for Silver Screen Partners/Home Box Office, she contacted Feldman, a former employer, and asked for a copy of Red’s script. She submitted it to her boss, HBO senior vice-president Maurice Singer. He liked it and sent it back to New York to be read by Michael Fuchs, HBO chairman and chief operating officer. They needed his approval to get the film made. It would not be easy to convince him because it was not the kind of material that he liked. Sure enough, he passed on the project. However, Dubrow had to go back to New York on other business and met with Fuchs. She mentioned The Hitcher script and pitched the Hitchcockian thriller angle. He listened politely to her and that was that.

When Dubrow returned to L.A., Singer told her that Fuchs agreed to make the film but with the stipulation that the girl would not be torn apart and the violence would be reduced. Over the next few months, the filmmakers negotiated two key scenes in the script with studio executives: the girl getting ripped apart and the eyeball in the hamburger. For the latter scene, Harmon just changed the body part to a finger. As for the former, everyone at HBO/Silver Screen, except Dubrow, wanted it changed. Fuchs did not want the girl to die but Dubrow argued that this would change the story significantly. There were arguments about how she should die and Dubrow remembers, “they were trying to make her death not horrible, when – by the nature of the script – it had to be.” The studio even suggested softening her death by having a funeral. The filmmakers refused to back down and executives finally relented at the last minute.

While these discussions were going on, the producers began the casting process. In early drafts, John Ryder had been described as skeletal in nature and so actors like David Bowie, Sting, Sam Shepard, Harry Dean Stanton, and Terence Stamp were mentioned. Harmon was set on casting Stamp and even carried around his picture to pitch meetings. The actor received a copy of the script but he turned down the role. Sam Elliott was offered the role but an agreement could not be reached on his salary. Singer mentioned Dutch actor Rutger Hauer. While in L.A. for a short visit, he read the script. Even though he was looking for non-villainous roles, the script “really got ahold of me ... I thought, ‘If I do one more villain, I should do this.’ I couldn’t refuse it.” The one reservation he had was with the scene of the girl being ripped apart and Feldman told him, “You are the bad guy and you’ll be the baddest bad guy there ever was!”

For the role of Jim Halsey, the producers mentioned Matthew Modine, Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez (who, reportedly, was interested). They agreed on C. Thomas Howell and liked his look. At the time, the actor was being more selective with the roles he took and heard that the script was a generic thriller. Harmon personally gave Howell a copy of the script. The actor couldn’t put it down and “couldn’t believe the things that happened to my character in the first 12 pages. I knew I wanted to do it.” Howell also wanted to work with Hauer, fresh from a career-defining performance in Blade Runner. Jennifer Jason Leigh agreed to do the film because she also wanted to work with Hauer again (they co-starred in Flesh + Blood) and loved the character of Nash because “there was a real person there.”

The budget was set at $5.8 million and contractually, Tri-Star was obligated to distribute any film by HBO/Silver Screen. They saw an early screening and Tri-Star president David Matalon said, “It’s the best film that we have for 1986.” The Hitcher opened in 800 theaters and it performed poorly at the box office. To add insult to injury, it was also savaged by critics at the time. Roger Ebert gave the film no stars and wrote, “But on its own terms, this movie is diseased and corrupt.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “It's very clear what sort of spine-tingling suspense Mr. Harmon is after, and just as clear that neither his direction nor Eric Red's screenplay can generate that kind of intensity.” The Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel wrote, “This is the kind of movie that may satisfy the mentally deficient, but it is more likely to drive away from moviegoing every unsuspecting adult who stumbles into it hoping for a decent thrill or two.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington wrote, "In the end, the only thing that does scare you about The Hitcher is its emptiness: not the emptiness of a desert road or a fear-soaked night, but a shriveling void in the people who made it." The one lone positive review came from Newsweek magazine’s Jack Kroll who called it “an odyssey of horror and suspense that’s as tightly wound as a garrote and as beautifully designed as a guillotine.”

In attempt at damage control, one of the film’s producers claimed that its commercial failure was because there wasn’t enough violence and that Nash’s death should have been shown: “There’s other gore in the movie, other killings, but this is the main one. It’s the motivation for the hero. You can’t show all the killings we showed and then not the main one. It’s cheating the audience.” He claimed that this hurt word-of-mouth and resulted in its dismal box office results.

In keeping with the current trend of remaking classic horror films that don’t need to be remade (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Friday the 13th), Michael Bay decided to give The Hitcher (2007) a go with music video director Dave Meyers behind the camera and television actress Sophia Bush in the C. Thomas Howell role along with fellow T.V. thespian Zachery Knighton in the Jennifer Jason Leigh role (sort of).

In this version, two college kids – Grace (Sophia Bush) and Jim (Zachery Knighton) – are traveling through New Mexico on the way to Spring Break. Along the way they pick up a mysterious hitchhiker who calls himself John Ryder (Sean Bean) and this remake proceeds to follow the original’s plot quite faithfully. This new version hits a false note right from the opening shot as a cute bunny rabbit is unnecessarily run over by a car in a feeble attempt to quickly establish the film’s badass credibility. Instead, it comes across as a lame attempt that does not bode well for the rest of the film. From there, it quickly trots out the stereotypes, including the slack-jawed yokel cliché complete with lazy eye no less.

Sean Bean is fine as the psychotic killer but he lacks the casual menace of Rutger Hauer who could go from genial to intensely frightening at the drop of a dime. Bean’s take on Ryder is rather generic – he is just another monster that has to be destroyed. With Hauer’s performance, there was a certain twinkle in his eyes, a sly look and shark-like grin as if to suggest that Ryder was actually getting off on all of the carnage he was causing. It’s damn near impossible to improve on an iconic character such as this one and Bean doesn’t quite do it but certainly gets an A for effort. Sophia Bush and Zachery Knighton don’t fare nearly as well as the good-looking young couple but to be honest their characters could be played by anyone. It doesn’t help that they lack any kind of on-screen chemistry. They don’t do anything to make themselves distinctive and certainly don’t hold a candle to their original counterparts, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

To his credit, first-time feature film director Dave Meyers shoots the hell out of the film. It looks good and almost distracts you from the weak script and generic performances. Sadly, much of the ingenuity he demonstrates in some of his music video work is absent here except for a car chase that is scored to “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. The same holds true for the scare tactics as Meyers eschews the original’s unrelenting terror for cheap jolts that we’ve seen in countless other, better movies.

This film proves yet again that producer Michael Bay has no understanding of the horror genre, merely offering up a clone of the original film. The Hitcher was a nasty little horror film that had no ambitions other than to scare the crap out of you and succeeded due in large part to Rutger Hauer’s creepy turn as a charismatic and seemingly unstoppable hitchhiker cum killer. The film was an exercise in white knuckle primal fear, charting a young man’s journey on the road trip from hell. What makes The Hitcher so scary is that it takes the plausible set-up of picking up a hitchhiker and then proceeds to take it to all kinds of unexpected places. The film plays on some pretty basic fears only to then heighten them to almost absurd levels as represented by the nearly superhuman Ryder who seems capable of anything. The original film’s stature has improved over the years, helped along by the unnecessary sequel and the instantly forgettable remake. All they do is remind one just how superior the original is – a timeless horror film featuring the ultimate boogeyman.

For more on The Hitcher, check out Sean Gill's fantastic review of the film over at his blog, Junta Juleil's Culture Shock where, last week, he dedicated entirely to Rutger Hauer!