In 1983 upstart cable television network HBO brought out the anthology horror-thriller series The Hitchhiker and it went on to run an astonishing seven seasons (some of which ran on the USA Network) gaining some popularity, but it would soon be eclipsed by Tales From The Crypt which HBO premiered in 1989.

Much like Tales... and it's "Cryptkeeper" character, The Hitchhiker, had Page Fletcher playing a mysterious hitcher who would do brief narration at the beginning and end of each episode, however in the first three shows Nicholas Campbell played the role and had more interaction with the cast.

Already released in complete season sets on DVD in Canada by Koch, HBO throws its American customers a bone with this second 2-disc volume that collects ten episodes from various seasons. The episodes here are for the most part pretty bland with most of them being hit-or-miss and this collection focuses mostly on gathering shows starring B-level actors with only three of the ten being worthwhile.

Most of the tales here rely on playing off the "dark side of human spirit", but it's the ones that focus more on the paranormal (like "True Believer") and black magic ("The Curse") that work best and unless you're a big fan of the show you'll probably find the entire thing to be tiresome.

However there are some bright spots here as Tom Skerritt ("True Believer"), Jerry Orbach ("Cabin Fever"), and Drew Paul Martin ("Secret Ingredient") turn in above average performances and a few of the episodes actually rise above the obvious low-budget of the series; but there's not quite enough here to recommend this set as the bad stories (like the confusing "Dead Heat" and the plain awful "A Whole New You") are truly bad, a handful of them are quite dull ("Man Of Her Dreams"), and most of them are generally a waste of time.

Judging from what's here it's hard to believe that, The Hitchhiker, lasted as long as it did; but if you must get this DVD set then get it for the three episodes mentioned above as you can easily skip the other seven. (Chris Hartley, 4/28/05)

Directed By: Various.
Written By: Various.

Starring: Page Fletcher, Kirstie Alley, Harry Hamlin, Jerry Orbach.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: There's a little bit of fuzziness to the picture, but considering the show was quite low-budget and edited on video it looks a little bit better than it would on TV.

Extras: There's not a heck of a lot here with just a pair of commentaries to chew on.

Phillip Noyce and Harry Hamlin get together to talk about "The Curse" but it mostly just feels like Noyce interviewing Hamlin about his career and gives little information on the actual episode. Then director Carl Schenkel talks about his episode, "True Believer", and it's a fairly interesting track that talks about the limits of production and how the story changed from its original version.