Charles Bronson

THIS MOVIE MAKES WOMAN LOOK LIKE GENIUSES

El Chupacabra

There was nothing they could have done differently

The Asylum brings us yet another B-movie spectacle, but this time something's different. Gone is some of the campiness and poor acting that we have seen in past Asylum features. Not to be confused with the other two movies by the same name, The Hitchhiker was actually somewhat disturbing at times, mostly as a result of the performance by the deranged traveller. He did a lot of that creepy, expressionless starring-off-into-the-distance that generally alerts people that the lights are on, but no one's home. It wasn't Hannibal Lector, but it was certainly better than that naked guy from The Off Season. What wasn't different from the usual Asylum fare was the non-sequitors, continuity errors, one-take-that's-a-wrap moments, and the unexpected, but hilarious finale.

The movie took place at a 10 room motel. That kind of location is easy on the wallet, but with a psychopathic man holed up in one of the rooms with wall-to-wall plastic sheeting to catch arterial spray, you might be tempted to compare the situation, however slight the similarities, to the Bates Motel in the movie Psycho. I'm pretty sure Alfred Hitchcock just punched a whole through his coffin and is coming here to kick my ass for making that comparison.

The premise is that a group of nurses heading to Las Vegas for a convention forego all common sense and do everything in their power to get each other killed. This is a deep character flaw that only made this film more entertaining, if not frustratingly so. Near the end of the movie one of the surviving women conforts the other and says "there's nothing we could have done differently". We found this particularly hilarious because there was so much they could have done.

The most entertaining part of this movie was watching a group of women do whatever they could to not get away. I mean, after a third of the movie we wanted them to die because of their half-assed attempts to save their own lives. With this movie as a guide, I thought I might share some little pearls of wisdom to women who find themselves in a similar situation of being held captive by a serial killer:

1. If only your hands are tied, you still have something called legs. They can kick, run, even dial a phone..
2. If a man is trying to kill you and you manage to knock him out, for God's sake, tie him up or shoot him. Don't just leave him sprawled on the bed surrrounded by guns and knives.
3. If you mange to get away, the shower stall in the motel room next door is not a good place to hide.
   
4. If you're an actual nurse, not an actress playing one, and your friend is shot in the arm, try to keep her alive longer than 60 seconds.
5. If your kidnapper goes to sleep for the night and leaves your legs unbound, consider getting up and leaving.
6. If you have managed to conceal a cell phone, do not text-message 911, dial them directly.
7. If police show up and your kidnapper is chatting with them outside, scream and/or open the unlocked motel room door and escape.
   

When the women finally escape their captor, we're treated to an action packed finale. It's shown entirely in slow-mo which lets us see everyone blink as they shoot while pointing their guns at imaginary targets in the sky and underneath the ground. If showing complete disregard for their own lives wasn't enough, the women get a policeman killed in the melee.

It didn't help that the hitchhiker healed faster than Wolverine. He gets stabbed in the stomach, shot more times than 50 Cent, and then run over by a Durango, but comes away without even a limp. And why exactly is this psychopath going from state to state killing women? Apparently he was dumped by his girlfriend. If that's not a good enough reason to hate all women, then I guess mysogynism is going out of style.

The hitchhiker was a fun movie to watch with friends, although it does have a bit of a disturbing edge. I would go so far as to suggest that all women should watch this movie so that they know not to text message 911.

Eberts Thumb

Dont pickup hitchhikers

You can pick up the movie The Hitchhiker, but as a general rule don't pick up people by the side of the road. The Hitchhiker may not be for everyone, definitely not the faint of heart, but if you can stand people getting brutally murdered and raped (not in that order) you will probably enjoy it.

The movie starts off with the villain burying a girl in the desert. Apparently nobody can see them or hear her scream despite being only 40 meters from the road with cars passing by. He must have left the truck running while he has digging because he starts hitching from here. This is where he meets up with the victims of our movie, four twenty-something nurses going to Las Vegas for a "nursing conference" (this is nurse lingo for "a week of drinking"). Of the group, two are sluts, one just broke up with her boyfriend, and the other is married. Their car breaks down near a dive motel and the girls take to the mysterious stranger despite the fact that he talks and acts like a serial killer. After a night of boozing by the pool, the emo girl has a midnight rendezvous with the hitchhiker. This was a bad decision for two reasons:

1. It sets the hitchhiker off into a murderous rampage having to deal with honesty (I didn't get it either)
2. The last thing her friends hear about her before she dies is that she likes it in the ass.

Next the hitchhiker kills the repair guy so the girls can't leave the motel, he kills the motel guy so they can't get their deposit back, then drugs them and takes three of them back to his room and ties them up. When the last girl wakes up, she runs to his room and gets herself tied up. After this we get the hitchhiker explaining why he likes to rape people and trying to get passers-by to ignore the blood stains on the door.

The biggest problem with the Hitchhiker is that everyone in the movie is dumber than the dumbest person watching the movie. The cops don't notice a big blood stain with a bullet in the middle on the door, and when they do they don't do anything about it. They also don't know how to find cover when someone comes at them with a shotgun. The "nurses" in the movie freak out at the sight of blood, and one of them can't perform first aid to save her friend's life. I happen to know a lot of nurses, and they deal with life or death situations on a regular enough basis that when something crazy happens, they get it together and stay calm. I sometimes think they hope somebody gets hurt so they can show off their skills. And lastly, the Hitchhiker gives up a week of guilt free sex with three of the girls because he had a crush on the one girl that wasn't going to give it up. Instead he has to drug them and tie them up. Of course, if he didn't do that, we'd have a completely different movie.

Despite the problems, the Hitchhiker did give us some suspense and was well acted. The blood effects were also convincing enough that the movie was a bit disturbing. And despite taking place mostly in one room, it didn't drag on (much). If you are a fan of the horror genre and can stand a rape scene or two, I'd definitely recommend watching the Hitchhiker.

Crap Bag

Be careful who you pick up. He could ask you if you are gay.

The Hitchhiker is very loosely based on the 2007 film called The Hitcher and by loosely I mean that they both have the, hitch and er in title and both focus on a psychotic guy.

So apparently if you want to kill someone and need somewhere to ditch the body you only need to drive about thirty feet away from the highway.  As is typical the four girls pick up a guy on the side of the road and they have to stay in a motel over night when their car breaks down.  They also start hanging out with the strange guy they picked up while waiting for a mechanic to come by and fix their car.  The Hitchhiker manages to seduce one of them pretty easily and he is still able to wake up early enough to get to the tow truck driver to bring him to his truck and kill him.  He then proceeds to drug the other woman and then hauls them off to his plastic off motel room.  He starts to rape 2 of them at which point they are able to subdue him with a plastic bag.  Now rather then tie him up or kill him they run off and try to start the first car they find.  When that plan doesn’t work they decide to go back and try to kill him.  When he wakes up he shots the one who is probably a hemophiliac as she dies from blood loss from the flesh wound to her arm or from smearing most of her blood on the front of the door.  Also for nurses they aren’t very good at emergency triage.  He proceeds to chase down the others and rams one with his truck and drags them back to the room.  When two travels stop by the motel to find a room they don’t suspect much when they see the blood splattered door as the hitchhiker convinces them that it is just paint applied very badly.  When the boyfriend of the travelers decides to investigate he gets shot in the head for his troubles and his girlfriend gets captured too to replace the girl that got hit by the truck and shot in the head.  The girlfriend is able to dial 911 on her cell while the hitchhiker takes a nap while spooning with the girl that tried to kill him earlier.  The cops show up the next morning, unconcerned with the bloody door or they guy coming to greet them with blood on his shirt.  A poorly choreographed gun fight ensues and both cops die.  A brief car chase another girl dies.  Another poorly choreographed gun fight and the hitchhiker goes down and then gets run over but some how he survives all this.  He then manages to escape; find the girl's home, ties up her husband and then the girl shoots him.  Hopefully he didn’t survive getting shot in the head.