ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Sean Bean turns on his best psycho smile for The Hitcher, a trashy remake of the 1986 horror. On a road trip, an attractive student couple are cajoled into giving a stranger, John Ryder, a lift. Naturally, he turns out to be a psychopathic killer. Just when they think they've shaken him off, he starts setting them up to take the fall for his hideous crimes. They're forced to go on the run in this pacy, preposterous B-movie.

If you're going to make a schlocky slasher flick, you may as well go the whole hog - or so the makers of The Hitcher seem to have decided. Why have a gorgeous girl being pursued by a bloodthirsty killer without dressing her in a short skirt and tight top? Why indeed have a steely-eye killer if you're not going to cast Sean Bean? And if you're going to show someone dying horribly, why not string it out as long and as gruesomely as possible?

"EVEN MORE SUPERFICIAL THAN THE ORIGINAL"

There's nothing subtle about The Hitcher, but its boundless enthusiasm for genre staples entertains in a silly sort of way. The pace is lively, the threat constant and the cunning of its villain quite masterful (he even manages to dispense with whole police units, single handed and out of sight). But Ryder's character is never explored, and the whole exercise is even more superficial than the original. A guilty pleasure - but only if you like your action outlandish, your continuity challenged and your guts and gore splattered all over the screen.

The Hitcher is released in UK cinemas on Friday 22nd June 2007.