The Hitcher

Plot synopsis:
Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), a young man delivering a car from Chicago to San Diego, spots a man hitchhiking and gives him a ride. The man, giving his name as John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), is a brooding, soft spoken man; when Jim passes a stranded car, however, Ryder's personality suddenly shifts. Ryder calmly states that the reason the car is stranded is because he murdered and mutilated the driver, and he intends to do the same to Jim. Ryder produces a switchblade knife and taunts Jim for several moments, before Jim realizes Ryder never put on his seat belt and that the passenger door isn't fully closed and knocks him out of the car.Relieved, Jim continues on his journey, until a station wagon carrying a family on vacation passes, and Jim is horrified to see that Ryder has hitched a ride with them. Jim attempts to signal the family, but ends up nearly totaling his car; when he finally catches up to the station wagon, Jim discovers the entire family has been horribly mutilated by Ryder.The movie shifts into an elongated chase sequence, which finds Jim trying to flee Ryder both on foot and in his car, to no avail; wherever Jim runs, Ryder finds him: It seems that Ryder, impressed with Jim's show of bravery by knocking him out of the car, has decided that Jim is the man who is finally going to put his killing spree to an end.Jim then finds Ryder at an abandoned gas station. Ryder knocks down the gas pumps with a pickup truck and then lights a match. Both cars drive off and the gas station explodes. Jim retreats to a roadside diner, where he meets a pretty young waitress named Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and calls the police. She then serves him a cheeseburger and french fries. He eats these in solitude, until discovering that one of the fries is a severed finger. Realizing that Ryder is nearby, Jim attempts to flee, but is stopped by the police who promptly place him under arrest, mistakenly thinking that he might be responsible for the dead bodies found by the side of the road. At some point, Ryder pick-pocketed Jim, and placed his wallet at the scene of a murder. Jim is taken to a local jail, booked, and placed in a cell.Sometime later in the day, Jim awakens from a nap to find the police station eerily quiet and his cell door open. Jim slips out to discover the bodies of three murdered policemen. Jim panics, steals a gun and runs from the station house as five police cars arrive.Jim comes to a pay phone and sees two cops pull up. Knowing that Ryder has framed him, Jim points his gun at them and takes the troopers hostage, forcing them to drive him away from the scene. He forces the police officers to get him in touch with the captain, and Jim pleads his case. The captain suspects that Jim is telling the truth, and asks Jim to come meet him. Jim agrees, but just then, Ryder pulls up alongside the car, kills the cops with a revolver, shoots out the radio, and drives away.Jim wanders across the desert to a diner and is confronted by Ryder. When Jim asks Ryder why he's pursuing him, Ryder only replies that Jim should know, then calmly reaches across the table and sticks two pennies over Jim's eyes (an ancient funeral ritual performed on corpses, so that their souls could pay Charon to carry them across Styx to the land of the dead). Jim is left terrified and alone with the pennies on his eyes - and a handful of bullets that Ryder left him for his gun. Jim attempted to shoot Ryder, but only to find that his gun has no bullets.Jim leaves the diner and sneaks onto a Greyhound bus. He then sees that Nash is on the Greyhound. He pulls Nash into the bus's bathroom and convinces her that he's innocent.Before the two can act, the police stop the bus and attempt to arrest Jim. But the hot-tempered Trooper Hancock (Henry Darrow) means to kill Jim because one of the policemen murdered by Ryder was his brother. Nash takes Jim's gun and pulls it on the two officers, and she and Jim flee in a police car. They're chased by two more police cars and Jim is forced to blow out their tires and cause them to collide with one another. Then a police chopper arrives and starts taking pot shots at Jim. Then Ryder pulls up, shoots the chopper down and drives away.The pair hide out in a roadside motel, but while Jim is taking a shower, Ryder breaks into the room and kidnaps Nash, dragging her to a truck stop parking lot where he ties her between a Mack truck and its trailer, threatening to tear her in half if he doesn't speak to Jim. The police, now convinced of Jim's innocence, enlist him to try to negotiate with Ryder. In the cab of the truck, Ryder demands that Jim shoot him. Jim refuses, saying that if he were to shoot Ryder, Ryder's foot will slip from the clutch, killing Nash anyway. Furious, Ryder insults Jim and then shifts both the clutch and the accelerator - the truck screams forward, killing Nash. Police swarm the truck and arrest both Ryder and Jim.At the station, the authorities are bewildered, unable to find any information on Ryder: He has no social security number, no driver's license, no indication that he has ever existed. All that the police can determine is that Ryder is a serial/spree killer and a threat which the local department cannot handle, and arrange to have him transported for holding at a state prison. Before Ryder is placed into a transport van, the police allow Jim to see him in the interrogation room. Ryder seems pleased to see Jim and touches his hand. Jim responds by spitting in Ryder's face.The police cover Ryder in shackles and chains and place him in the back of a prison bus, escorted by multiple officers. As Jim is loaded into a police car to be taken to his family, he finally decides to murder Ryder. Jim steals Captain Esteridge's gun and hijacks the squad car, chasing the prison bus. As Jim pulls up on it, the back doors fly open, to reveal the entire police escort murdered and a bloody, still partially chained Ryder clutching a shotgun. As the van veers out of control, Ryder leaps off the back of the van and crashes through the window of the police car Jim is driving. Jim slams on the brakes, throwing Ryder off; the sudden braking, though, causes the police car to stall, and a bloody Ryder lifts himself from the highway, picks up his shotgun, and begins firing it into the police car.Jim avoids the damage of the blasts by lying sideways, repeatedly turning the ignition key and pumping the gas pedal in an effort to restart the car; he eventually restarts the car, and slams it into Ryder, throwing him off the side of the highway. Jim slips out of the car, picks up the still-loaded shotgun, and inspects Ryder's corpse. Satisfied that Ryder is dead, he turns around and heads back to the police car when he hears movement behind him. As he stops, Jim is not surprised that Ryder is alive and standing up. Ryder smiles at Jim and throws his shackles down at Jim's feet. Jim responds by emptying the remaining shotgun shells into Ryder's body, at last killing him, and leaving Jim alone in the desert to light up a cigarette and watch the sun set over the horizon.

Tags: gothic, murder, violence, cult, suspenseful, sadist

Review:
Starring everybody's favourite Dutchman, Rutger Hauer, this superb road movie thriller is tense, thrilling and superbly atmospheric.The first scene between the Hitcher and Jim Holsey was superb, Rutger puts in a chilling performance.
The Hitcher is one of the most beautiful terror films I've ever witnessed.The Hitcher is not a realistic film and the hitcher character played by Rutger Hauer is not a realistic human being as he can follow the young protagonist (C.J Howell) anywhere and always knows where he is.
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Jim Halsey (C Thomas Howell) is a young man driving his car down a freeway one night who suddenly decides to stop for a man who is hitching a ride.
That man is John Ryder (Rutger Hauer.) From the off-set, he doesn't make himself out to be a nice guy and he doesn't let up from there- threatening to kill Jim for no reason and making him sweat for his life.
Jim manages to get rid of his twisted assailant- only to be thrown headlong into a maze of murderous mayhem as 'The Hitcher' goes on a killing spree (involving a lot of cops) with Jim getting taken as the scape-goat.The film opens with a masterful bolt of suspense- in a thunderous rain-shower, The Hitcher holds out his thumb as a crack of thunder erupts over-head, setting the scene for the suspenseful, scary ride that's about to follow.Hauer lives and breathes the role.
In an early role, Jennifer Jason Leigh makes a bit of an impression as the cafe owner's daughter love interest.Spielberg's Duel first dealt with a man being hounded on an American highway for no reason...you are only left to guess 'The Hitcher' is meant to be the mad truck driver's brother.
This is the predator/prey relationship evidenced in "The Hitcher," one of the most relentlessly intense and mean-spirited horror films ever made.Since the setting is the desert, I suppose it would make more sense to call John Ryder (played by Rutger Hauer) a vicious coyote, who is picked up one rainy night by a stray lamb named Jim Halsey (C.
It's a purely relentless cat-and-mouse game, as ambiguous about what lies behind the dark forces of life and death as No Country for Old Men (if not quite as timeless as that film).It should be said, plain and simple, Hauer's performance here and in Blade Runner are his definitive work as an actor.
But between scenes like his "talk" with Jim at the diner to his mere (more than usual) startling re-appearance in the motel room lying next to Jennifer Jason Leigh, one can't help but feel his character and performance to a degree straddles the line of reality and the supernatural, as if it's all allegory while at the same time directed and acted with such a straight face.
I have to wonder if Christopher Nolan watched this film, and particularly studied the climax, for the Dark Knight (one can see the ambiguity with his Joker and obsession against the Batman as a comparison to Jim and Ryder), since at the least the Hitcher delivers so strongly on counts of storytelling, acting, cinematography, even the somewhat dated 80s music sticks tough.
Without spoiling the plot, this dichotomy, and its ultimate resolution, is the real underlying story and Eric Red's telling of it is mesmerizing.The final component of what makes this one of my favorite films of the 1980's is Rutger Hauer's brilliant and truly frightening performance.
Hauer terrorizes Howell for the remainder of the film "I want you to stop me." Outstandingly paced suspense and blood-splattering gore, from director Robert Harmon, photographer John Seale, and writer Eric Red. The Harmon/Seale/Red team make this "road trip" a classic exploitation.
C. Thomas Howell stars as Jim a man who picks up a hitch hiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer in an effective performance) who makes life a living hell for Jim, by sticking a finger in his fries or framing him , Is Ryder really killing people or is it Jim's imagination.
Without wasting any time we come to know that the hitchhiker John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) is a relentless suicidal killer who has been on a killing spree.
The Hitcher is a brilliant and suspenseful classic that mixes Action-Thriller,Horror and Road movie as well as great atmospheric direction,amazing performances,a fantastic screenplay,intense Action and a creepy and memorable score making The Hitcher one of the all-time great genre classics.The Hitcher tells the story of Jim Halsey(C.
While driving Jim stops the car to pick hitch-hiker John Ryder(Rutger Hauer).
Now,Jim has to stand up and stop Ryder at all costs and put an end to the madness.Released in 1986,The Hitcher is a brilliant and unforgettable genre classic that failed at the Box Office and was hated by film critics at the time of it's release.
The Hitcher is an amazing film from beginning to end that mixes Action-Thriller,Horror and Road Movie that right from the opening pulls the viewer into a dark nightmare that you as the viewer will never forget.
The ending of The Hitcher is brilliant and ambiguous because it leaves viewers with a lot of questions and no easy answers about the main characters John Ryder and Jim Halsey and the ending makes you think.
Rutger Hauer is excellent,scary and frightening as John Ryder,one of the best villains in movie history.
Fantastic score,Isham.In final word,if you love Action-Thrillers,Horror Films,Road Movies,Road Thrillers or genre films in general,I highly suggest you see The Hitcher,a brilliant,unforgettable genre classic that will stay with you after you watch it.
The man that Jim picks up on a dark rainy night is the mysterious John Ryder (Rutger Hauer).
The only one that believes Jim isn't a killer is a waitress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that he meets in a restaurant/rest stop.Directed by Robert Harmon (Highwaymen, Nowhere to Run, They) made an terrific, mysterious horror/thriller with plenty of humorous black comedy, some invented action sequences and many memorable moments.
It's a suspense thrill ride that leaves you wondering what the Hitcher is going to do to Jim. Rutger Hauer does one hell of a job portraying the evil in this movie.
C.Thomas Howell does a good job playing a believable part as the teen being stalked by The hitcher.There's not too much blood in the movie for you to cringe and one certain scene doesn't show anything but a reaction shot but the events leading up to it were frightening.
Arguably the most intense road-thriller ever made is this daring, well-spun shocker.Young man driving across the American west is terrorized by a murderous, psychotic hitchhiker.The Hitcher is a thriller that plays out like a relentless, bloody nightmare and finds horrific effectiveness in doing so.
Thomas Howell) picks up a man named Ryder (Rutger Hauer), and the terror begins.A hauntingly desolate landscape, a thunderstorm at night, and minimal dialogue make the first few minutes of "The Hitcher" a chilling atmospheric thriller.
He continues along the road to find a phone but the hitcher continues his murders ahead of him and, when he eventually does get to a phone, Jim finds himself suspect number one for the killing spree.I can understand the problem many viewers have the film in regards the issue of John Ryder having the supernatural ability to be everywhere at once and be able to silently kill any number of people with great ease.
Every time there's a slow moment, the film quickly turns around and delivers more shocks and thrills; and it's that mentality behind the film that ensures the audience will be kept on the edge of their seats.A huge reason for The Hitcher's cult success is Rutger Hauer's performance at the centre of the movie.
i thought this was a very good movie.it had action and suspense.it was very intense in some scenes.i also thought Rutger Hauer was very convincing as a psycho,while C.Thomas Howell is good as the hero.Jennifer Jason Leigh is also good in a supporting role.there is also a very inventive and nail biting torture scene that doesn't end the way you might think.another thing i really liked was the fact that many things are implied,but not shown,adding another dimension to the movie.this movie certainly had me on the edge of my seat a lot.to me,"The Hitcher is a classic,and still stands up well today.i'ts low budget,but effective.
Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh.This movie has everything great acting from everyone, great direction from Robert Harmon, cinematography is awesome, great practical action effects.
Cop cars flips over and explodes.John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) is the ultimate Michael Myers type who kills everyone on the road except Jim Halsey (C.
Only one girl Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) believe Jim is innocent and he did do nothing and she try's to help him out.One of the best psycho road action thrillers ever, you have guns, chases everything this cult classic of a film has.
C. Thomas Howell is legendary as Jim Halsey who must fight for his life and stop John Ryder.Rutger Hauer's best performance ever why we fans love this film to death and cherish it, it is because of Rutger Hauer.
Movie Review: "The Hitcher" (1986)The directorial debut of Robert Harmon realized under highly effective cinematography by John Seale, who eventually will do his best work on "The English Patient" (1996) and "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015), comes along with high-voltage suspense driving of the young adult Jim Halsey, giving face in James-Dean-mimicking coolness by actor C.
Thomas Howell, who meets an imaginative ultra-violent father figure, performed in menacing-scary manners by Rutger Hauer as John Ryder, on isolated roads of the Mid-west areas of the U.S. leading to California.
"The Hitcher" is a lucky punch of a movie thriller, where simply every shot follows the next with curiosities of being further sucked into an imaginative world of young man between dreams and realities, where constant surprises await in upcoming scenes, as the character of Nash, portrayed by 23-year-old actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, who delivers the matching pendant to Jim Halsey, when they come together to fight authorities in form of up-on-their-heels highway patrols for pleading innocent in games of cat-and-mouse with John Ryder, where nothing is what is seems, before this extraordinary 1980s thriller concludes to my satisfaction.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC).
Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer, The Hitcher is an under-appreciated classic to come out of the thriller genre.Jim Halsey is transporting a car to another state for some extra money.
Beaten at each stop he makes by Ryder, Jim soon finds his only hope will come from a waitress at a truck stop, the only person left who believes he is not responsible for the crimes he's being set up for.I can't tell you how much I adore a film that is able to get right into the action, and The Hitcher is definitely a film that accomplishes this feat.
Anyone looking for or suspecting the standard romance angle will not find it in this movie; the only developing relationship that develops here is between the kid & the hitcher.This is probably Rutger Hauer's best known role - and *the* perfect example of how good an actor he is.
Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh give very memorable performances in this classic cat-and-mouse thriller directed by well-known TV movie director Robert Harmon.
Even though he keeps showing up in various movies (most recently Sin City and batman Begins), Rutger Hauer will always be remembered by sci-fi and horror fans for two characters he played in the '80s: one is Roy Batty, the sympathetic replicant in Blade Runner, who delivered the unforgettable "I've seen things..." speech; the other one is the title role in Robert Harmon's cult thriller The Hitcher.Hauer stars as John Ryder, a mysterious man who asks young boy Jim Halsey (C.
How can a being like him be stopped?It's a question Jim needs to answer before it's too late, and the same question keeps popping up in the viewer's head, as we go on being horrified by the nasty, shocking deaths Ryder comes up with during the movie (one scene is so cruel its impact is increased by the fact that most of the horror takes place off-screen).
What begins is a relentless game of Cat and Mouse between Hitcher and Driver, involving terrible destruction and gruesome murders with some thrilling cop car chases involving a helicopter...excellent moments.C. Thomas Howell is at his best here, playing a decent, likable guy who is drawn into a terrible twisted psychological warfare with a quietly deranged loony who never stops.I'm happy to say that this is Rutger Hauer's signature role for me (as well as Batty in Blade Runner) his John Ryder is a man of enigmatic power and chilling indifference, in his scenes with Howell when he is picked up at the start of the film, his charming smile turns to an icy coldness which i just could not see any other actor doing better.
I liked the interpretations of Rutger Hauer who played as John Ryder the hitch-hiker and he was very good at it and C.
There's something about this movie that makes me go back time and time again to relive the thriller that is "The Hitcher." I first saw this movie a few years after its release when I was about 14 yrs old or so and I remember feeling really disturbed and creeped out by the character "John Ryder." This movie is one that left an impression on me and decades later I still warn against picking up hitch-hikers and, when people laugh, I just look at them and say "did you not see The Hitcher?" The performance delivered by Rutger Hauer in this iconic movie is unforgettable and the relationship between he and protagonist, C Thomas Howell, is very convincing.
Thomas Howell) is a nice guy just minding his own business when he picks up a hitchhiker, a strange man called Ryder (Rutger Hauer).
Howell also demonstrates how an ordinary teenager can change into a helpless being who is caught between a psychopathic game of cat-and-mouse set by a brutal man hell-bent on killing him.The nice New Mexico cinematography of which the film was filmed and set gives tranquility to the picture and makes the film looks good while delivering the thrills.
Howell also demonstrates how an ordinary teenager can change into a helpless being who is caught between a psychopathic game of cat-and-mouse set by a brutal man hell-bent on killing him.The nice New Mexico cinematography of which the film was filmed and set gives tranquility to the picture and makes the film looks good while delivering the thrills.
Thomas Howell), who makes the serious mistake of picking up a hitchhiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer).
The movie is pretty well written with some great action/terror scenes, and the beginning of the film completely turns you off wanting to pick up hitchhikers.
It starts off as a really creepy horror movie about a murderous hitchhiker, and towards the middle it turns into a Hitchcockian cat and mouse thriller, and at the end it turns into a generic 80s action film.The acting was pretty good.
Rutger Hauer plays him to menacing perfection, and his lack of dialogue only adds to his eeriness.Overall, The Hitcher is a good thriller, but I feel like if it was a creepy horror movie the whole way through, it would have been better.7/10.
This movie slowly became a cult classic and not without a good reason, the combination between great cinematography, well handled suspense and Hauer's powerful acting give this movie its reputation as one of the best (and most underrated) thrillers of the 80s.C. Thomas Howell is Jim Halsey, a young teenager who is traveling from Illinoins to California in his first trip out of town.
I remember how they kept talking about "What happened to Jim fifteen years ago..." So being the horror buff that I am I went to my local video store and brought it ( Talk about trusting it!) So after turning the lights down low and sitting on my couch and started to watch one of the best films ever made by a man...The film is about a young man named Jim (Howell) Who's driving a rental car across the back highways of Texas, Along his way he picks up a hitchiker (Rutger Hauer) Who end up being a crazed psycho who holds a knife to his throat and tells Jim to say he wants to die...But Jim gets the upperhand and throws him out of the speeding cars ( Whenever Jim's honking and swearing...It always cracks me up.)But little does poor little Jim know...This is only the beginning.The movie was filmed great ( Loved the outside shots) And had a great pace to it...Theirs really not a lot of talking between the people, But whenever they say something it's to the point and hits hard.The story is one thing I wanna bring up, Eric Red is one of the best writers I ever saw, He made his story so un-known, Almost in a dream/nightmare form...Leaving us asking questions of what did the Hitcher really want...and was Jim's job to stop him?
Title: The Hitcher (1986)Director: Robert HarmonCast: Rutger Hauer, C Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason LeighTagline: Never Pick Up a StrangerReview:I hadnt seen this movie since I was about 11 years old so I rented it again, to see if it was still as good as I remembered it.
Thomas Howell picks up the worst hitcher he could have ever wished for, so my memories of it were vague, but I did remembered one thing about it....that it was good.Story is about a young guy called Jim Halsey, hes driving through the interstate to deliver a car to someone.