The Hitcher

5.00
    The Hitcher
    1986

    Synopsis

    On a stormy night, young Jim, who transports a luxury car from Chicago to California to deliver it to its owner, feeling tired and sleepy, picks up a mysterious hitchhiker, who has appeared out of nowhere, thinking that a good conversation will help him not to fall asleep. He will have enough time to deeply regret such an unmeditated decision.

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    Cast

    • Rutger HauerJohn Ryder
    • C. Thomas HowellJim Halsey
    • Jennifer Jason LeighNash
    • Jeffrey DeMunnCaptain Esteridge
    • Billy Green BushTrooper Donner
    • John M. JacksonSergeant Starr
    • Henry DarrowTrooper Hancock
    • Jon Van NessTrooper Hapscomb
    • Jack ThibeauTrooper Prestone
    • Armin ShimermanInterrogation Sergeant

    Recommendations

    • 80

      Empire

      A stunner of unrelenting tension interrupted by action, violence and gore.
    • 75

      TV Guide Magazine

      Feature debuts don't come much better than director Robert Harmon and screenwriter Eric Red's sleek, dream-like thriller about a naïve college boy who crosses paths with devil in the flesh after taking a wrong turn on some lost highway.
    • 70

      Time Out

      There's a little toying with the old doppelgänger idea of the hero and villain coming to resemble one another, and the ending is rather straightforward; but it's a highly competent sick-fright version of the evergreen chase formula.
    • 70

      Washington Post

      It's hard to wholeheartedly recommend The Hitcher. Sadistic and graphically, pointlessly violent, it may leave most sickened. But it is also a distressingly effective thriller, with plenty of scalp-tingling, seat- clutching squeals on wheels. And here's betting you'll check the back seat of your car after you leave.
    • 40

      Washington Post

      Much of the problem lies with Howell, a dilute, rabbity actor in the Tim Hutton mold. Everyone acts Howell off the screen, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, who displays an easeful gruffness as the girl who joins Jim. With Howell's weightlessness, the deeper elements of the story -- the byplay between guilt and innocence, for example -- never accumulate.
    • 30

      The New York Times

      Existential terror, in the case of Robert Harmon's Hitcher, means an unmotivated viciousness that's as cryptic at the story's end as it was at the beginning.
    • 30

      Variety

      The Hitcher is a highly unimaginative slasher that keeps the tension going with a massacre about every 15 minutes.
    • 20

      Los Angeles Times

      It's a cheap, easy rehash of Spielberg's "Duel" and "The Hitchhiker" (which Red may not have seen)--along with grabs from "Halloween" (the unstoppable fiend), "Jackson County Jail" (the innocent motorist driven outside the law) and "Straw Dogs" (manhood through blood rites). Nothing is original.

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