The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting
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| The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting | |
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| Directed by | Louis Morneau |
| Produced by | David Bixler |
| Written by | Molly Meeker, Charles R. Meeker, Leslie Scharf, Eric Red |
| Starring | Kari Wuhrer, Jake Busey, C. Thomas Howell |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 2003 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting is the 2003 sequel to The Hitcher, which stars C. Thomas Howell, returning as Jim Halsey, Kari Wührer as his girlfriend Maggie, and Jake Busey as psychotic hitchhiker Jack.
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[edit] Tagline
Evil Waits Again By The Side Of The Road
[edit] Plot
Fifteen years after Jim Halsey's horror filled trip through Texas at the mercy of a crazed murderer, he works as a police officer, but has recently been suspended for using excessive force on a kidnapping suspect. It is revealed his girlfriend, Maggie, has her own crop dusting business. Jim makes a call to retired Captain Estridge in Texas, who asks Jim to come down to Texas to talk to him face to face about his mental scars from the last movie. Maggie, who obviously does not know about the event, pleads with Jim to let her tag along.
Arriving in Texas, the couple pick up a car that Estridge has left for them, and set off to his house. Jim notices a sign along the highway announcing DANGER: DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS which sets him into flashback mode. The two see a RV that has run off the road, with blood dripping through the door. Maggie wants to stop and help, but Jim speeds up, irritating her and making her more curious about his erratic behavior. Soon, a motorcycle speeds past them and wrecks. Maggie lets the driver into the back, against Jim's understandable protests. The hitcher reveals his name to be Jack, and after Maggie tells him her occupation he remarks "A farm girl!" He asks them what they are in Texas for, and Jim responds with "None of your damn business." Jack doesn't appear fazed by Jim's impolite behavior. Jim suddenly envision himself and Maggie being killed by Jack, and pulls a gun on him and evicts him from the car. As they speed away, Jim informs Maggie of his last experiences with hitchers, while Jack lights a cigarette and says to no one in particular, "Damn fool." An 18 wheeler stops behind him, and Jack presumably steals it.
Jim and Maggie continue to Estridge's home, but are pulled over by a cop. The same 18 wheeler, however, pulls up. The driver steps out, and appears to be the same driver as earlier. The cop says something to the effect of, "Earl, I'm on business here," to which the driver replies, "Well hell, so am I!" and promptly shoots the cop with a revolver. The man slides his 'hair' off his head, and we can see it to be Jack, who scalped the driver and wore his hair as a disguise. He allows Jim and Maggie to escape.
The couple then arrive at the Estridge residence late at night. They find Mrs. Estridge dead in the house, and then go to investigate the barn, finding the captain dead in there. Cops suddenly swarm the residence, including what appears to be the newest sheriff. Jim and Maggie discover Jack in the hayloft of the barn, but can't do much about it, since Jack has a rifle and they don't. Jack picks off several officers, causing a hail of bullets to be fired on Jim and Maggie. Jim takes a bullet, and Maggie drags him into a truck inside the barn. She drives off with him, evading the cops and Jack. Jim tells her to kill him ASAP, no matter what he says, and dies. Maggie falls asleep in the desert, but wakes up inside an abandoned water tower with Jack leering down at her. He tells her to look out, the tower isn't very sturdy, and leaves. Maggie escapes as the tower collapses, and takes the 18 wheeler Jack stole earlier to a remote gas station. She goes in, finding a live clerk, but turns away for a moment and sees her dead. She picks up a souvenir Tomahawk, sees another dead clerk, and Jack in the clerk's uniform. He acts uniformly normal, taunting her. She asks him why he's doing this, and he responds, "Sometimes you just get bored of watching television."
The cops arrive again, and Jack fires at them with a shotgun. Suddenly, he grabs a knife, cuts off his own finger, and gives the gun to Maggie before taking off. He is grabbed by the cops, as is Maggie as she pursues him, and he concocts a fake story where she killed the clerks and cops and cut off his finger. He calls himself John in the station, rather than Jack, which convinces Maggie he is the same man as 15 years before. Maggie is being transported to jail as the sheriff begins to have doubts about her guilt. However, he is shot by Jack, who frees Maggie from the truck, throwing a revolver to her before escaping in a tanker truck. She takes several bad shots at him, and sees an airfield where... a crop duster, which she can fly, is parked! She steals it, then goes after Jack. They exchange gunfire, air to ground style, before Maggie kamikazies the plane into the truck. She escapes the fireball, as does the truck, which grinds to a halt. She approaches it and finds an unconscious Jack. She ties him up to the truck, much like Nash. He claims not to be the same person, but Maggie cares little, and places a bag of feed on the clutch, ripping it open with a knife, slowly causing the truck to roll forward.
However, the police show up again, freeing Jack and shooting Maggie in the leg. As expected, as soon as he's free, Jack kills the cops. Maggie picks up a shotgun, aiming it at him. He taunts her one last time: "Are you still scared?" before Maggie destroys the truck with a shotgun blast, incinerating Jack and freeing Maggie from his psychotic grasp.
[edit] Similarities to the original
The plot is basically in the same vein of the original, with the genders of the protagonists reversed. The 'sheriff aspect' is also similar.
[edit] Differences
In this film, the 'hitcher' character has changed. He has metamorphosed from the silently spooky Rutger Hauer to the twisted and dementedly methodical, and almost comical, Jake Busey. This makes it somewhat unlikely they are the same person.
