Review of China Lake

China Lake (1983)
7/10
Excellent short movie from the director of The Hitcher
9 November 2006
This short film runs for thirty minutes and was written and directed by Robert Harmon who thanks to this flick got the job of directing the classic horror chiller The Hitcher.

Its the story of Motorcycle cop Donnelly, a man who spends his vacation time driving around on his Harley in the desert highways still dressed in his uniform.

Clearly halfway through this short we learn that Donnelly is deeply disturbed and psychopathic after coming across a few people that have upset him in his twisted ideal of what is right and wrong.

The actor Charles Napier does an excellent job of portraying this unpredictable and very dangerous Traffic Cop. My favourite scenes are when he has some banter with a waitress in a roadside diner and instantly dismisses her after getting angry in his mind at two cement workers,(one of them played by William Sanderson who was J.F. Sebastian in Blade Runner) who are eating their dinners and minding their own business. But in Donnelly's dangerous mind they are guilty of just being there.

The photography of this movie short is beautiful...the desert locations and use of music from other film sources are quite well put together. If you loved The Hitcher you will see this as a sort of dummy run, albeit a very good dummy run.

Seven Out Of Ten
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