Rutger Hauer-best known for his portrayal of Roy Batty in Blade Runner-plays the enigmatic hitchhiker, John Ryder, who seems to be on a murder spree on a stretch of desert road outside of California. It is from within the darker underbelly of the road narrative that The Hitcher comes. On some level, these asphalt stories always demand some form of blood offering. More often than not, the results of that self-discovery are less enlightening and more frustrating, generally stemming from the raw constitution of the human nature–not only of the traveler, but also of the others he meets along the way. The road narrative has become a stage for an almost Shakespearean drama of self-discovery. Something about the vastness of land between the East and West coasts, and the travel therein, captures the imaginations of Americans.Īmerican road narratives are often naturalistic in their portrayal of the highways and the environments that surround it. It is implanted in the very DNA of America all the way back to accounts of the Middle Passage and Alexis de Tocqueville.
JUST THE TWO OF US MOVIE FULL
Hitchhiking is just one aspect of a wider American artistic landscape full of the open road–from Woody Guthrie to Jack Kerouac to Easy Rider. It seems to be another victim slain in the slow and continuous death of the old neighborly courtesies. Whether it’s the rise of urban legends or the rise of actual incidents, hitchhiking is all but extinct nowadays. John Ryder: You’re a smart kid…figure it out.
Jim Halsey: Why are you doing this to me? The second film selection for Blake & Ian’s four-part series comes from Blake’s selection of favorite horror films, the 1986 version of The Hitcher, starring Rutger Hauer, C.
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