The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003)

Undescribable Perfection

Overrated

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is underrated gem an underrated sequel and that not a bad one, and that a good one. I enjoy it, I never hated the film like fans of the first film does. Kari Wuhrer was a good scared girl a victim who turns in to heroine on the end of the film and stops the killer. C. Thomas Howell is back as Jim Halsey and he does a good job, I love his character. He saved young boy's life from a maniac and he saved Maggie from been killed. I like this film a lot, doesn't love it, like I love the first one but I like it a lot. It is so bad that is good.The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003) is a good fun sequel not better than the first original movie, or the greatest one, but a good one. C. Thomas Howell returns as Jim Halsey from the first film and he is respectfully in the film and he is for the rest 40 minutes in the film and he does his job well. His character is respectfully treated in this movie from a scared boy to a cop who saves people. The first movie is a cult classic action film while this movie in my opinion is a step down from the first film but a good sequel and I don't think it is horrible. I understand why fans of the first 1986 film hate this sequel and are major disappointed. That is because this film killed off the two main characters from the first film. That was a bad idea and they shouldn't have done that. Jake Busey is a terrible psychotic hitchhiker he is no Rutger Hauer. John Ryder was a stone cold psychopathic maniac killer on a highway, while Jack is a sociopathic killer and he is no John Ryder I understand that. His character is not stone cold, he talks way too much and he is goofing around, that hurts the film. Eric Red should have return for the script, in stead it was written by three people. The film faithfully follows the first film and does not copy the formula from the original film or copy the cult classic film at all, I like that. You have a truck been chased by an airplane and a great showdown between the heroine and the villain. A bad-ass scene I like that scene in the film so much. They are low budget but a good practical effects, the film doesn't copy the original end of the film and you have a huge explosion on the end. Jack is not John Ryder's son sorry fans, and he is not different or better than Rutger Hauer, but a lame version of a hitchhiker killer.I really wish to get this film on DVD, I will make a copy of this film for myself. I have two version of the first Hitcher on DVD and I love it. I saw this film on VHS tape in the video store many years ago when I was in high school and this movie got me in to "The Hitcher" movies.6/10 not a bad horrible sequel like everyone says, it is a good film. I love The Hitcher 1 and like The Hitcher 2. I like, like a lot this sequel, Kari Wuhrer is still a good heroine to me. The film is Rated R and still try's to be a horror movie with suspense, it is blood and nasty horror film tough. :P

THE HITCHER was a good thriller of the 1980s that's been well remembered by a lot of fans, not least thanks to Rutger Hauer giving one of his best performances as the ice-cold, stop-at-nothing serial killer. In more recent years, Hollywood has tried, unsuccessfully, to have another slice of the cake, first by releasing this straight-to-video sequel and then by releasing a bigger budgeted remake with Sean Bean in the Hauer role. I've seen the latter, and it's nothing special, so this undistinguished sequel was the last of the 'hitcher' films (not counting the countless rip-offs) that I had to see. I wasn't missing much.The most interesting thing about the film is that C. Thomas Howell reprises his role from the first film. I didn't like him much in THE HITCHER, but he's grown up a lot since then and I actually found that he gave a pretty good performance. For me, he was the most interesting person on screen. He provides a nice, fitting link between the first and the second films, and as the sole returning actor, a lot rests on his shoulders, but he doesn't let that stop him.The worst thing about this sequel, though, is the story, which is just a blatant copy of the first film's plot. A hitcher is picked up and then dropped off after being revealed to be a psychopath. There's shtick with severed fingers, roadside cafes, and somebody who gets tied up between a truck cab and its stationary load. Once again, the intrepid sheriff department don't believe a word of what's going on, so it's up to our youthful hero to stop the hitcher in his tracks. Yep, we've seen it all before and done better, so aside from the plane vs. truck climax (which I liked, and which is something new), don't go expecting originality here.This time around the hitcher himself is played by regular bad guy for hire Jake Busey, son of Gary. Jake's been burning up the screen in the likes of ROAD HOUSE 2 and IDENTITY, so he seems an obvious choice for the part. He doesn't come close to Hauer's performance, though, or even Bean's for that matter. Busey's encouraged to go way over the top at all times, with plenty of wisecracks and humour along the way. I appreciate the vitality he brings to the film, and I do like him as an actor, but he just doesn't sit right here. Better is Kari Wuhrer, as the attractive heroine forced to go up against the maniac. Many women in modern horror films are pretty, young and poor actresses to boot, but not so Wuhrer. She really delivers her part and it was a delight to have her on screen.Anyway, things play out as you'd imagine, and there's nothing in the way of shocks or indeed surprises (although the film does open with a most effective twist). Saying that, the desert locations are well used and the action has a certain slickness about it that makes it appealing, so I can't say I didn't enjoy this one; for a straight-to-video sequel made almost twenty years after the original, I think it does okay.

Since I didn't like the original, I popped in the sequel with my typical optimism. See, whenever I happen to dislike a movie with a cult following, I go to the sequel and remake thinking "It'd be funny if I wound up liking the hated and evil sequel/remake more than the original." Why? Just because many people dislike sequels and remakes on principle alone. Well, as it turns out … I didn't like the sequel (or the remake) either.The Hitcher 2 is the cinematic equivalent to the equation (X * 0 = 0). Some ideas just don't lend themselves to sequels. The idea of a God-like Hitchhiker with the mystical power of popping up whenever and wherever the plot needs (sorry, *demands*) him to make the protagonist's life hell? Yeah, no matter how you cut that it's an obedient repeat of the first one. At best the sequel can bring superficial changes that, in the end, count for nothing. No matter what number X represents (X=5, X=50, X=500, X=50Bajillion), the equation always yields 0.In the first film the Hitcher needs to materialize in the backseat of a car belonging to a nice family; in the sequel, the Hitcher needs to appear at a farm belonging to a nice old couple. And so on, and so forth.Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) returns to the scene of the original crime to face his demons, and joining him this time is Maggie (Kari Wuhrer.) Jim's demons materialize in the form of the new Hitcher (Jake Busey who tries too hard to play a psychopath.) The Hitcher this time around is apparently a former master of ceremonies at a carnival freak show, or maybe even a Nickelodeon game show host on crack. I dunno. All I know is that Busey made me better understand the notion than an actor has to "become" the character because here he clearly just "plays" crazy in the most artificial sense.Like its predecessor, The Hitcher spends most of the film killing everyone around the protagonist, framing the protagonist, chasing the protagonist, and pushing her to the brink of sanity. The sequel continues the trend of good cinematography (even if it is overly stylized for the sake of over stylization). More than anything I wanted the nicely done effects and neat scenarios to thrill me … but I couldn't believe in them enough for that to happen.No fan of the thrillers watches them to disbelieve. I don't watch Indiana Jones, Die Hard, and the Alien films (among many others) for absolute logic. Hell, I liked Torque, Half Past Dead, and most of Michael Bay's films. And I was keenly aware of this when Maggie flies a plane around the Hitcher's massive 18-wheeler, and the soundtrack kicks into overdrive with intense chase music while the plane just circles and circles and circles. I thought, "Okay, what's the point?" Whooshing by the truck isn't going to do anything even if the music tries with all its might to convince me otherwise. This isn't an honest presentation – it's a cowardly act of trying to punch up tension that doesn't exist. It's the score that cried wolf.And since the movie indulged on a punched up and pointless (thus thrill-less) fly-by sequence, it gave my mind the opportunity to note the plane realistically couldn't threaten the truck without crashing (probability favoring Maggie dying before the Hitcher). Plus since the film wanted to cry wolf, I stopped listening entirely. So much for the film's climax.Thrillers can ride amazingly thin plots with amazingly thin characters and get away with it. A film has to literally split hairs to cut them too thin, and amazingly many do.

Remember The Hitcher? A violent, suspenseful cult flick starring Rutger Hauer? Well, it didn't need a sequel, did it? That's what any average moviegoer would say.Unfortunately, someone thought a second installment was necessary, hence this cheap rehash of the original, which sees Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) and his girlfriend threatened by a young, crazy hitchhiker (Jake Busey) who turns out to be (hold on) the reincarnation of John Ryder, the psycho Jim killed in the first film. So what's going to happen? The usual, I'd say: Ryder Jr. kills a lot of people, blames the protagonists, blah blah blah...This is the kind of sequel that has "cheap" written all over it, with its predictable screenplay, excessively familiar death scenes (some are copied shot by shot from the original) and embarrassingly dull acting: Howell has lost all the charm he had in 1986, his female co-star does nothing but scream, and Busey's attempt at channeling Rutger Hauer fails within 30 seconds from his first appearance. The whole reincarnation thing also robs the original film's climax of its strength: unlike Halloween killer Michael Myers, Ryder wasn't supposed to return.The good news is, no one seems to have made plans for a Hitcher III so far, thus leaving only this straight-to-video disaster as a sad footnote in the horror genre.