I thought the original Hitcher was better. but in my case it might be nostalgia. I was eighteen and took my girlfriend to see it in 1986 - scared the hell out of me at the time. That and the fact that I like the director. He's directed all the Tom Selleck Jessie Stone movies. Anyhow I like the original because of all the revolver action. Even at the time it was made it had more of a seventies horror vibe than a mid-eighties slasher flick.
As a kid I always liked the hardcore scare stories that they made so many of in the sixties and seventies. You know the type. There is always a couple or a solitary protaganist who are out in the middle of nowhere and they're being pursued by a cult, crazed killer etc. Most of those movies were B-flicks and had lots of action. Gunplay was pretty standard and the guns
actually worked against the bad guys.
In addition to gunplay there were high speed chases and explosions. American International Pictures made alot of them. Sometimes the goodguys made it and sometimes they didn't.
That's what the original Hitcher reminds me of.