The Hitcher: Never Pick Up a Stranger in Portland

Picking up on my last post about how much PDX rules, let me pile on a bit more. The day after I arrived Zach took me to the Hollywood Theatre to see The Hitcher (1986) in 35mm.

Approaching the amazing Hollywood Theatre marquee in Portland, Oregon is half the experience

It’s worth noting that the Hollywood Theatre was effectively saved by a local group in 1997 and restored to its former glory, and has since created a thriving, community-focused  non-profit that has worked tirelessly to preserve the magic of experiencing film. The theatre is sustained through donations and memberships and if the packed crowd at The Hitcher was any indicator, it’s working! I know Zach is happy to contribute given how much this organization gives back on a regular basis, and why wouldn’t you, it’s an absolute treasure. It’s also worth noting that the Hollywood Theatre bought and preserved the iconic video store Movie Madness I mentioned in my previous post. How ridiculously awesome is that!

The Hollywood marquee head on tells the night’s offering, and damn are they good.

So I had the pleasure of experiencing Rutger Hauer taunting, haunting, and absolutely owning C. Thomas Howell for 90 minutes, with a young and amazing Jennifer Jason Leigh being stretched to her absolute limits in a full house with a completely locked-in crowd. That’s the movie experience this place has preserved, and even those who lived it in the 70s, 80s, and 90s(?) can start to forget how magical it can be if enough time streams by. Another great touch was the brief introduction to start the film noting it was a box office disappointment and critically panned, yet at the same time it’s probably Rutger Hauer’s best role outside Blade Runner. The critics absolutely hated it,* but when I saw it for the first time on video, it was an instant classic in my teenage mind. Hauer was pure evil, and Howell was running scared from the very beginning. It’s about as taut an action film as there was in the 80s, and a testament to the power of home media to give films like this a second chance to find a new audience. As the docent acutely noted in his brief introduction, it’s surprising director Robert Harmon didn’t go on to do more movies like this. The Hitcher is a good example of the critics being dead wrong. Hauer noted the movie was misunderstood, it’s an allegory and his character was pure evil. Amen.

The front of the hard cover VHS case of the EMI Thorn/HBP Video of The Hitcher

Not but two days after that wonderful movie experience I was at a comic swap in the abandoned Lloyd Center and found a copy of The Hitcher on VHS. The Hollywood Theatre was my first time watching the film on scratched up 35 mm, but I’m no stranger to the Thorn EMI/HBO video tape I bought a copy of at a forsaken H&M. In fact, one of the first videos I played on the VHS in Reclaim Arcade’s living room was The Hitcher. There’s a copy in Reclaim Video which I acquired, but there are certain tapes you just cannot remove from that collection without its continuity truly suffering, it’s right up there with Basketcase† (1982), Strange Brew (1983), C.H.U.D. (1984), Terrorvision (1986), and The Stepfather (1987) to name a few.

Worn back cover of the VHS case of The Hitcher

There was a certain amount of good juju finding this tape given we’d just seen it a couple of days earlier at the Hollywood: a good omen, souvenir, and bounty for bava.studio all wrapped into one. I like the hard shell case of this video, and as you can see from the pictures it’s very well used—but the case is an absolute tank.

Actual VHS tape of The Hitcher with an Albertsons supermarket sticker to suggest it was a grocery store rental

I was also taken by the Albertsons sticker on the right plexiglass window above the spool. I am guessing it was a rental at a West Coast chain of supermarkets—remember when supermarkets and even mini-marts rented and sold VHS tapes?  They were truly ubiquitous media in the 80s and early 90s.

The back of the VHS tape with two deep yellow plastic spools that I am sure were once white

I also love how the plastic spools on the back of the tape look as if they were actually yellow (the above picture is pretty accurate). Don’t be fooled, this is the weather worn plastic sun tan of an almost 40 year old VHS tape. What’s more, it has not seen it’s last rodeo now that it’s joined the growing ranks of outdated media at RGB!

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*Both Siskel and Ebert gave it zero stars, come on!

†As it turns out, I saw Basketcase in the Winter of 2023 at the Hollywood Theatre on yet another trip to Portland.