Le Year in le Review

My, my, my. As you may have noticed, 2007 is almost over...which, according to my calculations, means that 2008 is almost ready to begin. It's time for resolutions and year-end lists, huzzah! I've only got two resolutions this year: 1) Be more awesome, and 2) avoid anything having to do with Paul Reiser. You might think these aren't terribly challenging resolutions- not like your average New Year's rezzies such as quitting smoking or losing 300 pounds. Rest assured, however, that I will struggle throughout 2008 to reach these seemingly humble goals. I mean, as to resolution #1...I totally know what you're thinking: is it even possible for me to be more awesome? And regarding resolution #2...I'd say it'd be a cakewalk, but at some point I'll probably be struck with the urge to watch Aliens. What's a Paul Reiser-avoider/Aliens-lover to do? Life is full of difficult, difficult choices, and that will be no exception.

Now, don't you go thinking I'm not cliched enough to bust out a year-end list type post, because I totally am. Indeed, it's time for the...

Final Girl Year in Review Dazzling Spectacular Event of Note!

JANUARY: Ah, January...the cruelest month. The heinous-osity of the Black Christmas remake was balanced out by the first-ever Animals Run Amok Week as well as Children Hate You Week. The Film Club was but wee that month, but those of us who soldiered through caught the simply marvelous Daphne Zuniga-flavored slasher The Initiation. Wait, the cruelest month? I think I meant the coolest month!

• Review of the month: Black Christmas

• Quote of the month: "Thankfully, however, Cameron gets his Emperor Palpatine on and has a "spectacular" showdown with the demon in pure 80's Spencer Gifts fashion." - Cameron's Closet review

• Photo of the month:

FEBRUARY: Oh so short yet oh so sweet, looking back, I must say that February kind of rocked. I saw some films that filled my heart with glee and saw some films that filled (and continue to fill) my heart with rage (I swear to G.O.D., if I ever see you on the street, The Cavern, you'd better run for your life); the Film Club got all highbrow with The Exorcist; there was Defenestration Week, and my love affair with The Descent got all ten kinds of analyze-y.

• Review of the month: Gnaw: Food of the Gods 2

• Quote of the month: "I give it 4.5 out of 10 maybe next Piper Perabo and Lena Headey should team up in an antagonistic buddy-cop flick, where Piper Perabo plays a feisty, hardened NYPD detective who’s recently lost her partner in a shoot-out with a scum-sucking drug dealer and Lena Headey plays her new partner, an uptight British import. They don’t get along, of course, and Piper Perabo calls Lena Headey some name like “Buckingham” (for the Palace, natch) and Lena Headey will scold Piper Perabo for going against regulations and breaking the rules. Then the movie will kinda ripoff Ladykillers (starring Marilu Henner and Thomas Calabro) and the duo will have to investigate a series of murders at an exclusive Chippendales-style strip joint, that way there could be lots of musical numbers wherein screaming ladies wave dollar bills at breakdancing cowboys. Eventually the girls solve the crime and bag the perp, Lena Headey has learned something about New York bagels, Piper Perabo has learned something about clotted cream, and they’re not only partners but they’re also now besties. The film ends with a freeze-frame of a high-five and “Paradise City” by Guns-n-Roses starts blaring over the credits. Oh yeah, and they make outs." -The Cave review

• Photo of the month:

MARCH: Given that there are 31 days in the month and I only managed 13 posts, it's obvious that I've got a "fuck March!" kind of attitude. I'm don't exactly remember what my beef is with March, but I'm sure it was acting like a jerk or something. Anyway, quantity and quality are two different things, no? Oh, what a great movie-watching couple of weeks they were! The Film Club caught the supernatural war flick Deathwatch... Bubba totally didn't do it in the made-for-TV slasher Dark Night of the Scarecrow... Ed Neal and Marilyn Burns wore lots of eye makeup in Future-Kill... and blah blah blah.

• Review of the month: House of the Dead

• Quote of the month: "That’s got to be the most retarded showdown in the history of ever and I can’t believe it actually happened, but I saw it with my very own eyes." -The Hitcher 2 review

• Photo of the month:

APRIL: Holy frickin' crap, April was AWESOME. I met Marilyn Burns; Moustaches of Horror were on parade; Kari Wuhrer Mania '07 was in full swing; more animals were running amok than ever before; thanks to the Film Club I finally caught Prince of Darkness...in fact, with the exception of the death of director Bob Clark, I'd have to say that April kicked beaucoup ass.

• Review of the month: Nigh impossible to choose but one...but let's say The Swarm.

• Quote of the month: "I mean, you'd be surprised how often "I can smell your cunt" comes up in the course of a week." -from that post where I answered some questions

• Photo of the month: Man, this was hard to choose. April Fools? More like April RULES.
  

MAY: Oo-eee, May sure was craptacular...craptacular in the best way possible, that is. Between Slash Dance, Knight Chills, and Incubus (featuring the first and thus far only haiku review here at Final Girl), it's a miracle I didn't gouge my eyes out at some point. As we all know, however, generally my pain means your pleasure as the worst movies make for the best reviews. Thankfully that triple threat of suck was balanced out by my hearting Wrong Turn and catching some other decent flicks.

• Review of the month: Knight Chills

• Quote of the month: "Or maybe, just maybe, they'll fart fire like super cockroaches do!" -from the review for Frogs

• Photo of the month:

JUNE: June was a bit lame despite the fact that it marked the anniversary of my birth. Final Girl Super Secret Clubhouse Headquarters underwent a massive change and posting was a bit light. The Film Club managed to cram in a viewing of The Innocents, but other than that movie-watching was virtually non-existent. I did, however, manage to ruminate on vampires, Curtains, and other bloggers, which is totally...worth...something.

• Review of the month: Kiss Daddy Goodbye

• Quote of the month: "I mean, when the kids are, like, staring at each other for a few minutes and there's nothing else going on and the kids are all stare stare stare, it was...well, you might not believe it but it was, like, only the most totally fucking exciting thing I've ever seen in a movie and, like, my shirt exploded because I was totally Hulking out with excitement and the little scraps of my shirt caught on fire as they fell to the living room floor because the air was like electric with excitement, you know?" -from Kiss Daddy Goodbye review

• Photo of the month:

JULY: Boy, with the misery of June behind us all, July came on all guns a-blazin' and cracka-lackin'! I posted some facts about myself that the world was simply dying to know, I lost my San Diego Comic Con cherry, I interviewed Alex Reid, the Film Club watched Behind the Mask (which virtually everyone but me enjoyed), I made a traileriffic list, and more than 25 people participated in the Friday the 13th Blog-a-Thon. Man, I'm still wiped out from all that awesome.

• Review of the month: The Fog (remake)

• Quote of the month: "If a tree falls in the forest and only Helen Keller is around, does it make a sound?" -review, Silent Scream

• Photo of the month:

AUGUST: August may be best known as the month in which I survived numerous brushes with death, but looking back at it there was so much more! Awesome Movie Poster Friday was born, I reviewed a Lifetime movie, I interviewed a bunch of people, reviewed a bunch of stuff, and I met Adrienne freakin' Barbeau. Go, August!

• Review of the month: not quite a review, exactly...just my hopes for the inevitable Exorcist remake.

• Quote of the month: "Those movies are perfect- you're only going to make yourself look like an asshole by remaking them." -Rob Zombie

• Photo of the month:

SEPTEMBER: At long last, I officially indulged in my love affair with killer doll/puppet movies with Hello, Dolly! Week; it seemed as if there were 463598 Awesome Movie Poster Fridays throughout the month; I made up some movie titles, and the Film Club checked out Halloween, a film I'm still trying to forget. You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have September.

• Review of the month: Pinocchio's Revenge

• Quote of the month: "Then in the sequel they can all go to space and something something the love of a little orphan girl will save the world." -from a random post about Kelly Hu

• Photo of the month:

OCTOBER: I'll be the first to admit that last October sort of fizzled out. I started strong, reviewing some of my most favoritest movies at a furious one-a-day pace, but then...I got busy. And I had a lot of work to do as well. HA HA HA did you get my double entendre there? Anyway, what I lacked in reviews I kinda made up for in...other stuff, like some awesome Awesome Movie Poster Fridays, a sweet Film Club choice, and some choice interviews (umm...I talked to Elmuthafuckinvira, y'all) and stuff, including one wherein I entered the magical world of "video". October ended up okay, right? Tell me you still love me!

• Review of the month: Creepshow

• Quote of the month: "In space, no one can hear your complaints!" -review, Event Horizon

• Photo of the month:

NOVEMBER: What a month of dizzying highs and depressing lows! I hit Post #500, the Film Club kicked ass with the Lauren Tewes-flavored Eyes of a Stranger, Amicus Week rocked the house, and Lame Week unrocked it. Throw in some wicked mega-packed Awesome Movie Poster Fridays and you've got yourself one sweet-ass November chowder.

No, that doesn't make sense.

• Review of the month: Eyes of a Stranger

• Quote of the month: "The lesson here is, if you're going to be crazy and have a homicidal imaginary friend, you'd might as well have a homicidal imaginary friend who looks like Britt Ekland." -review, Asylum

• Photo of the month:

DECEMBER: OMG, I totally remember December as if it were still happening! Isn't that weird? I must confess, December has been one of those months where I haven't much felt like watching anything; in fact, I only managed 2 real reviews and one sort-of review during the entire month! What a jerk. Oh well. Maybe I'll make a resolution that next December won't suck as bad. Or maybe not. I do what I feel like- you don't own me!

• Review of the month: Dogs

• Quote of the month: "It is obvious to me now that Joan Van Ark died five years ago and no one bothered to tell her." -from a random post about Joan Van Ark, whom I still love, living, dead, or undead!

• Photo of the month:

Well, there you have it...my super duper Final Girl Year in Review Dazzling Spectacular Event of Note. I hope you had as much fun reading these last 12 months as I had writing.

I hereby promise* to totally flip out and make 2008 the best year ever here at Final Girl. Up yours, 2007!





*I promise nothing

The Special People Club

You know, I hadn’t quite realized that Clive Barker’s Hellraiser has become a bonafide franchise, a juggernaut set to rival even those most stalwart of franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. In fact, previous to this past weekend, I’d still only seen the original Hellraiser. I was shocked- shocked, I say!- to find out that Hellraiser: Deader (2005) is the seventh film in the series, and it’s not the last. Where the hell(raiser) have I been?

Kari Wuhrer stars as Amy Klein (shut up I know I’ve totally been on a Kari Wuhrer kick lately but I can’t seem to control myself ok so shut UP), an ultracool reporter who writes ultracool articles with titles like “How to be a Crack Whore”. She’s so ultracool, in fact, that she got booted from The New York Post for being…I don’t know, too ultracool or something, and she’s now writing for an ultracool London newspaper.

One fateful afternoon, Amy’s editor (Simon Kunz) calls her into his office in order to check out a videotape he received in the mail. On the tape, a group of kids who call themselves “Deaders” stand around in a warehouse looking all mopey. A girl Deader is cajoled into blowing her brains out so the leader of the Deaders, Winter (Paul Rhys), can suck face with her and bring her back to life. What a cool club! The girl sits up and exclaims “I’m OK!”, oblivious to the fact that while she may be alive again, she’s now saddled with a giant hole in her head. That’s gross, not to mention unsanitary. Why didn’t she hang herself or something equally less messy, rather than shooting herself in the head to play this little resuscitation game?

I don’t mean to harp, but I just couldn’t get past the impracticalities of the whole thing. “Yay, I’m alive again! Boo, I have a large gaping hole in my head! Mayhaps I shall fill said hole with Spam, using the canned meat like so much caulk. Then I shall get mah hurr did- a little weave here, a little weave there and I’ll be all set!”

At the conclusion of the tape, it’s decided that The Deaders have “huge ultracool blockbuster story!” written all over them and thus Amy must get the scoop. Her only lead is the return address on the mailing envelope, and so it’s off to Romania for Amy Klein.

Once in Romania, Amy gets caught up in all sorts of wacky Deader capers when she finds a dead body, another videotape, and a strange li’l cube we’ve all seen before.

Somehow our plucky and ultracool reporter has become trapped in a battle between the Deaders and the Cenobites- I think. It was all sort of confusing and nonsensical, and there were so many “Omigod did that just really happen? No, it’s just a dream…no wait, it DID happen…no, it was just a vision...” sequences that I kind of stopped trying to figure things out. Eventually Pinhead and His Merrie Bande of Leather-Clad Weirdos show up and I decided to simply enjoy the visuals, the chains, and the goo.

The single biggest problem with Hellraiser: Deader is that it’s glaringly obvious that the film was not originally conceived as an entry into the Hellraiser mythos. It was meant to be an entity unto itself, but at some point a “shrewd” producer slapped the Hellraiser label on it, Pinhead was added, and POOF! Hellraiser 7.

Yeah, that approach? It doesn’t work. I mean, tacking Jason Voorhees into the last fifteen minutes of The Trip to Bountiful and changing the title to Jason vs Gramma doesn’t properly make it Friday the 13th Part 18, you know?

On the other hand, it would make it a film I’d very much like to see.

Had director Rick Bota and writers Neal Marshall Stevens and Tim Day not been bogged down with the need for some added-on Hellraiser stuff, Deader could have been an interesting little thriller. It’s still an ok movie, I guess, though I’m already forgetting about it- it’s another sequel of a sequel in a long line of exercises in character dilution. In the end, however, the film does raise an important question:

IS THERE ANYTHING KARI WUHRER CAN’T DO?

Is there any grade lower than F?

At some point in my lifetime, I think the name Artisan attached to a film generally indicated a modicum of quality, or barring quality, at least it denoted "interesting" and "indie". Didn’t it? Or am I making that up? I could be making that up, I’m not sure. Sometimes my memories get foggy and I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not real, what happened, and what I think happened. Like, I know for sure that some WWF wrestlers came to my high school…there was a ring set up in the gymnasium and the wrestlers…err, wrestled. I know this for a fact because I was there. Somehow, however, the idea that The Iron Sheik spit on me during said event has wormed its way into the memory, and I have no clue if that actually happened or not. Probably not; it seems like something so traumatic that you’d definitely remember, don’t you think? But there it is, floating around in my brain anyway.

As to Artisan, whatever that name used to mean no longer applies to their post-Blair Witch horror offerings . As absolute proof of this, I offer Final Examination, a 2003 Andrea Doria-sized stinker from director Fred Olen Ray that begs the question, “why weren’t you all at my house watching it with me so I wouldn’t have had to suffer alone?”

Yeah, THAT Fred Olen Ray, he who brought Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers to the masses, is behind this dreck. If only Final Examination had the same patina of joyful sleaze of other Fred Olen Ray films, then it may have been redeemed; when Fred Olen Ray directs under a pseudonym, however- he’s “Ed Raymond” here- one should take that as a sign of what’s to come. What’s to come, of course, is THE SUCK.

Some girl is driving and crying (but not listening to Drivin’-n-Cryin’) and then she drives and cries herself right off an overpass that’s still under construction. The car explodes in a fiery fireball and then, POOF! It’s five years later.

One guy is buying drugs from another guy on the streets of LA- just another day in the City of Angels, man. The attaché case (silver, natch) containing the money is handed over, but the buyer has duped the dope pushers! The case is full of confetti, which makes the dealer angry, which means it’s time for a car chase. I watched the chase sequence once and thought “Sweet mama, that was a lot of cuts!”, so in the interests of both science and Final Girl readers, I watched the sequence again in order to count the cuts….then my eyeballs exploded. The final tally? 130 cuts in 2.5 minutes. It was like watching that Wang Chung video which caused seizures in children except there was no Wang Chung. And BTDubb to aspiring filmmakers everywhere- all those cuts make for a lousy chase sequence.

Anyway, a few minutes later we learn that the man who bought the drugs is actually a cop- a cop who flips the bird to the rules! A cop who tells The Man to shove it! A cop who wears the gayest watch ever!

As the cop, who shall heretofore be known as Hot Shot Detective, is getting bitched out by his Captain, the Captain asks “What time is it?” at which point we get the close up of the lovely pink watch. Hot Shot Detective says “2:30”, to which the Captain replies “Wrong! It’s time for a change! You’re getting transferred!” – it seems the ridiculous car chase went against procedure and lawsuits ensued. Now, I think in these situations, cops are usually transferred to another department, aren't they? Fuck up too many times, and you’re on desk duty or back on the streets or given leave or simply fired; Hot Shot Detective, however, gets transferred to Hawaii. Wah wah, please, don’t make me go. Tropical paradises are such a fucking drag.

Aside RE: the watch: for some reason, Fred Olen Ray seems to think we need to both see and hear the time in this scene. When I was treated to the close-up of the watch, I figured, gee, that watch- or perhaps the hour itself- must surely be important and will most likely come into play later on in the film! In the end, however, neither the time nor the watch has any significance whatsoever. Then why would the director use such a superfluous shot? The answer, of course, is that this is simply the way of Final Examination. It is not for us to question.

The sorority skanks of Alpha Gamma Gummi Bear have been invited to Hawaii for a mysterious impromptu five year reunion, where they’ll also be photographed for Cavalier Magazine. The girls are going to be centerfolds, you see, in a feature one imagines to be titled “No Really, They Still Count As Hot College Girls Despite the Fact That They Graduated Five Years Ago”. Though the girls do admittedly find the whole affair a bit odd, they couldn’t refuse the offer- after all, Cavalier Magazine was founded by Derek Simmons (Winton Nicholson), a dashing and wealthy dot com entrepreneur the girls are all enamoured with and oh god please let him be single! When Derek Simmons finally shows up, the girls are still drooling, but I thought hmm. Hey, he looks like the love child of that weirdo MTV taxi cab driver as portrayed by Donal Logue and Toby, the nerd from American Splendor. What a stud!

We’re treated to an oddly silent photo shoot (B-movie mainstay Debbie Rochon is behind the camera this time) and then Final Examination finally reveals its true colors with a jacuzzi scene featuring one of the skanks and her boyfriend: yes folks, Final Examination wants to be a softcore porn movie. We’ve got the smooth jazz/chicka bow music, we’ve got painful looking breast implants on display, we’ve got a jacuzzi…but the one ingredient missing, the one ingredient that’s kind of, you know, essential to a softcore flick- is sex. The couple makes out some and I guess we’re supposed to think that means they’re having sex. And boy, was it awesome! A moment later, after all, the girl quips “Damn, baby, you could raise the dead!” to which the boy replies “Yeah? Look who’s talking!” GOD THAT’S HOT.

The boy wanders off to get some water- some water!- and the girl is attacked in the hot tub by a figure dressed in black. The figure strangles her awkwardly with a rope and leaves a calling card…omigod what can it all mean? I must admit, at this point in the proceedings I already figured out who the killer is. Yay me.

Now that we have a crime on our hands, it’s time to bring in the fuzz- Hot Shot Detective (Brent Huff) and his new partner Julie Seska (Kari Wuhrer) are on the case. From this point on, Final Examination turns into the worst episode of Silk Stalkings you ever could have thought possible, except it’s got boobs. The detectives bumble their way through the case- seriously, I’ve seen better policing done by my cats as they try to solve The Case of the String on a Stick. As I said, though, Final Examination wants to be softcore and it’s got boobs. Lots and lots of fake boobs trotted out whenever possible, including once for that old horror movie standby, the superfluous shower scene. One of the skanks hops in the shower as the smooth jazz begins, and the camera pans up and down slowly 5 or 6 times, always crossfading when it gets to the crotchal region. Final Examination reminds us that boobs can enliven even the dullest scene, such as the one where a skank has a scintillating phone conversation (“Hello? You want to meet at 10:30? OK. See you then!”) whilst topless.

The truth of the matter is, for all the bare breasts and smooth jazz, Final Examination is about as erotic as a Wilford Brimley Quaker Oats commercial (if you find Wilford Brimley Quaker Oats commercials hot, please do NOT let me know). If anything, they serve to remind us that the movie could have been an over-the-top (or at least in view of the top) sleazy slasher flick. Instead, it’s just plain dull. It was fun to watch Kari Wuhrer’s Failure Sense tingle all over the screen- she couldn’t have been more bored with the proceedings.

More skanks are killed as the movie becomes a total clusterfuck of stupidity by the end: there’s about 50 ‘twists’ to tie in the driving crying girl from the beginning of the film, there’s multiple killers (one of whom is revealed to be wearing a mask that looks straight outta Lucha Libre)...

...there’s yet another car chase, Debbie Rochon commits hari kari atop a fake waterfall, and the film ends with what is officially The Worst Last Line Ever: “Uh, yeah”. Kari Wuhrer remains hilariously mortified.

I know I’ve made this movie sound like fun. Maybe it is- at this point, I’m not quite sure- I know that as a thriller, as a horror film, as anything approaching erotic or good, Final Examination fails miserably. That said, it’s one of those movies I wholeheartedly recommend if you come across it at 2am on USA, when the only payment you’ll have to make to watch it is giving away a little chunk of your soul.

The film does make one significant contribution to the horror genre, however, as it reveals- at long last!- why a character might stay on in a bad place where all her friends are turning up murdered. Sayeth one of the skanks after two murders, “This whole thing has me freaked out. I probably shouldn’t think about it anymore.” That’s the answer: if you find yourself stalked by a slasher killer, simply ignore the problem! Just turn your brain off and take off your shirt. I recommend that approach to watching Final Examination as well- bare breasts, of course, are optional.

You were waiting? Really? I wasn't.

Did you know that there’s a Hitcher II? There is, and it’s called Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting. Somehow it seems to have gotten lost or overlooked in all the hullabaloo surrounding the recent remake of the original film- not that that's a bad thing, necesssarily. Hitcher II is pretty much the same as The Hitcher, except instead of Rutger Hauer as the psycho bad guy hitchhiker, this time around it's Jake Busey as the psycho bad guy hitchhiker. To me, this is the equivalent of going to a strip club once and seeing Angelina Jolie do a routine and then you return the following week and you see the same routine but it's performed by the mom from Growing Pains. She’s lovely and all, but the effect isn’t quite the same, now is it?

I just realized I talk about strip clubs a lot. I find them sort of fascinating, though in my heart I know they’re not. They're actually sort of sad and boring, yet I still find them endlessly intriguing. Oh well. Maybe I should start a blog about them.

C Thomas Howell returns as Jim Halsey, the kid who was so very traumatized by Rutger Hauer in the first film. Jim is now a cop, but he can’t seem to get over his confrontation with the evil hitchhiker; he’s plagued by flashbacks of the desert and the mullet he sported at the time.

After Jim gets trigger-happy on the job one too many times, he’s summarily fired. His girlfriend, crack cropduster pilot Maggie (Kari Wuhrer), reminds Jim that he just can’t go around killing people all the time and things have got to change. They decide to take a trip back to Texas so Jim can confront his demons once and for all.

Before long, they’re driving in the middle of a sand storm and Jim is sweating a lot and generally acting weird. He refuses to pick up a hitchhiking Jake Busey, but Maggie insists- the poor guy is out in the middle of a sand storm, after all, and man, why the fuck is Jim acting so oddly?

Yeah, see, Jim hasn’t told his girlfriend about those life-altering events long ago or exactly what demons he has to exorcise…if he had, she wouldn’t have insisted on picking up Jake Busey and then we ALL could have avoided a little heartache. They pick him up, however, and yes, he’s psycho. As in the first film, Jim soon finds himself framed for 543657651665217 murders as Jake Busey keeps fucking with him. In a super-shocking twist, however, Jim ends up dead. This means that Jake Busey now has to torment Kari Wuhrer and somehow frame HER for 543657651665217 murders.

Busey kidnaps Maggie and tucks her away in a decrepit water tower…she escapes, however, and drives off in an 18-wheeler. She heads to a rest stop/diner and contacts the sheriff, ready to explain everything. Much to her chagrin, however, Jake Busey is already at the rest stop/diner and he’s killed everyone inside. Now he’s behind the counter, posing as a short order cook, complete with hat and apron- and the sheriff is on the way! Whatever will happen?

I’ll tell you what will happen: Jake Busey will cut off one of his own fingers and throw it in the deep fryer. Then he will say- I fucking kid you not- “BAM! Kickin’ it up a notch!” Then Stacie will turn the DVD off for 20 minutes as she waits for her blood pressure to return to normal.

More and more ridiculous scenarios unfold until there’s a final showdown, with Jake Busey behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler and Kari Wuhrer behind the…whatever you use to fly a plane. That’s got to be the most retarded showdown in the history of ever and I can’t believe it actually happened, but I saw it with my very own eyes.

I tells ya, the only thing that kept me going to the end of this movie was my fervent desire to see an end to Jake Busey and his Chiclet teeth and relentlessly ‘90s hairstyle once and for all.

While I think there’s something valid to the notion of sequels that deal with the aftermath of events from earlier films and their effect on characters (this idea was handled well in Halloween H2O, for example), Hitcher II ultimately felt more unnecessary than even a remake of the original film. Jim never got to sort his shit out or have any kind of real resolution: he found himself in the exact same situation he was in almost twenty years earlier, and he died a lame death. Maggie ends up traveling down the same path, which seems ludicrous to me. How many cuckoo nutso nihilistic hitchhikers are there in Texas, anyway?

You’d be right to think that the “BAM!” line would take top honors for Most Appalling of Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting, but that’s only because I haven’t yet presented this evidence:




Umm…is that nose hair? I think it’s nose hair. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, and I was therefore glad when Jim met an early demise. C Thomas Howell will always have a place in my heart- I mean, he’s PONYBOY. But come on…when it becomes a distraction, it's time to fucking trim that shit, dude.

Hitcher II was just plain silly, and despite a decent performance from Kari Wuhrer, I can only appoint it a rating of: