Joining the Cinema Rediscovered team as Comms and Outreach Coordinator has given me a greater appreciation for the art of archiving and restoring films.
In a world filled with physical media and streaming platforms, it’s hard to comprehend that whole features can simply ‘get lost’ but therein lies part of the problem. For example, as more and more new Netflix Original content is added to the pile, other pieces must leave the server to make space.
What gets removed is boiled down to a mix of licensing rights, popularity etc. but ultimately, some are evicted with no other service to go to and without a Blu-Ray release in sight. Sure, there will be places on the internet where it may remain accessible, they just lie deep beneath aggressive pop-ups to no benefit of the creators.
In the pre-internet age, all of these problems were amplified. The luxury of piracy was limited to watching grainy camcorder footage filmed at the cinema or recording off of terrestrial TV onto VHS, having to fast forward through the adverts. Factor in the general wear and tear of these low-quality physical copies alongside companies focusing on new releases, and the pool of tolerable watches for lesser-known features begins to shrink.
This was the issue facing Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher (1986). After being passed over by multiple studios for being too violent (with executives getting especially torn up over one knotty scene), Silver Screen in collaboration with HBO reluctantly picked up the project. It bombed at the box office, a combination of unenthusiastic marketing and poor reviews hindering any buzz before copies began populating bargain bins in rental shops.
Therefore, despite a sequel and Michael Bay-produced remake starring Sean Bean doing an American accent, The Hitcher spent life underseen and in standard definition up until Forbidden Worlds Film Festival: The Big Scream 2024 at the Bristol Megascreen.
Through the introductions of this brand-new 4K restoration by Second Sight to a sold-out audience, it’s evident that the process suffered similar pains that face archiving. Searching for original film elements led only to a 35mm German print found in 2019, which was still deemed too low quality to remaster. An attempt to ‘Frankenstein it’ between two other copies also failed to meet expectations.
It was after finally finding a decent copy in an attic during the pandemic that a successful restoration could happen. However, they still had to deal with licensing from Warner Bros. who had taken over HBO Films Library. A lot of administrative red tape pushed the potential of a release back again, now five years on from their start date.
When it comes to the final product, Second Sight’s hard work has significantly paid off. The dry mountainous Texan plains glistened off of the biggest screen in Bristol. Rutger Hauer’s piercing blue eyes create such palpable intensity and tension that standard definition would not have done justice. Explosions pop, rain pounds car roofs and sweat drips of C. Thomas Howell’s forehead as he tries to outrun the psychopathic stranger hounding him down.
These 4K restorations allow new audiences to reappraise such films more accurately, providing the opportunity to experience The Hitcher in the way Harmon intended. On release, Roger Ebert gave it 0 stars for Hauer’s character Jack Ryder’s lack of backstory and motive, yet I would argue that this obscurity makes the film more terrifying.
Like Anton Chigurh in the also Texas-set No Country For Old Men, chaos is Ryder’s driving force. Only once someone had stood up to him, here Howell’s Jim Halsey kicking Ryder out of the car, that a motivation was formed. It’s not so much a targeted revenge story as Max Cady’s in Cape Fear, but similarly principled of psychologically torturing a man to breaking point, just with more destruction.
Halsey’s arc follows the traditional naive boy to hardened survivor man pipeline, with the real journey not knowing how he will be screwed over next, being constantly framed simply by remaining alive – a young Jennifer Jason Leigh as waitress Nash his one believer. By the end, it’s hard to believe that this trail of bodies and burned-down petrol stations was sparked by an innocent lift offer, truly embodying this year’s Big Scream theme of Strange Danger.
Consequently, The Hitcher is the epitome of a Forbidden Worlds film: A rental flick genre classic, likely to have been found at 20th Century Flicks, restored and cherished on the Bristol Megascreen.
Read more about my previous forays at the Forbidden Worlds Film Festival here!