obert Harmon's 1986 film "The Hitcher" was no classic, but it kept us held in a spooky tension that made it seem scarier than it really was: A guy picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a serial killer and perhaps something more ghostly. Pure boogeyman stuff. The one thing that made it stand out was the scenery-chewing performance of Rutger Hauer.

The new rendition is the latest production from Michael Bay, a first-time director best-known for Britney Spears and Dave Matthews videos. Bay's version, which gets most of its thrills through car crashes and lame one-liners, tells the same bland story: A couple of Abercrombie-sexy college coeds are stalked by a motiveless madman who becomes the personification of evil.

On spring break, Grace (Sophia Bush, TV's "One Tree Hill") and Jim (Zachary Knighton, "The Prince & Me") are driving across the desert toward Lake Havasu, Arizona in a 1970 Olds 442 muscle car. Then, on a rainy night, they almost hit a stranger standing in the middle of the road. Rather than help him, the shaken Jim and Grace drive off. Big mistake. When they are reunited with the man at a convenience store down the road, Jim feels guilty enough to give the stranger - John Ryder (Sean Bean, "Lord of the Rings") - a ride to a nearby hotel.

Very shortly, our boogieman shows his knife-yielding intentions, and Jim gets out of a chilling jam, but he doesn’t lose the man. Our stranger makes a game of putting dead bodies in their path while implicating them in the murders he commits along their route. The couple falls into panic zone, behaving in the most suspicious way possible, while their tormentor displays an uncanny ability to sniff out their hiding spots.