C. Thomas Howell plays a young man by the name of Jim Halsey, who is delivering a car to a customer in San Diego. As he travels across a lonely West Texas highway at nite, he's having trouble keeping awake and nearly runs afoul of a big-rig. When he catches a glimpse of a rain-soaked hitch-hiker (Rutger Hauer) standing on the shoulder, he stops to pick him up, against his better judgement, figuring the man's company would keep him awake.

Halsey tries to strike up a conversation with the hitcher, but the hitcher only gives him a terse and twisted tale about being out of gas and needing cigarettes. The hitcher begins to play a psychological game of words with Halsey that quickly turns into a life-threatening situation. A quick-thinking Halsey pushes the hitcher out of the moving car and speeds away, thinking that's the last he'll see of him. The hitcher seems impressed(!!!) by Halsey's escape; apparently no one else has been so lucky. The hitcher begins to pursue Halsey with a mindless obsession that leaves dead bodies and destruction all around them.

The hitcher is a master of manipulation in this film. I really liked the ending, although, if the storyline is followed accurately, it doesn't allow for a sequel with Rutger Hauer, who absolutely is the shining star of this movie. I would love to see him play this part again- it truly is his calling. As a previous Amazon reviewer noted, he doesn't have to speak a word for you to know what he is thinking and contemplating as the role of The Hitcher. His body language and facial expressions tell you all you need to know. I think this entire movie could have been done without a single line of dialogue from the hitcher and been just as effective.

Rutger is waaaay cool, the movie is awesome and it should be part of your collection if you dont have it yet. A DVD must!

While it's obvious John had wanted to kill Jim at first, he's now more interested in having Jim stop him, which is the basic drive of the movie, particularly at the end. He leaves a long trail of dead bodies, yet, at the same time, never harms Jim or the young waitress Jim befriends, Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh)--at least, not at first. But after some time, John uses Nash in one of his final attempts to get Jim's attention, by using a semi-truck as a rack and stretching her like a human turkey bone. This is one of the more memorable death scenes in this movie, though not visibly gruesome.

After this scene, I generally turn the movie off, even though there are several minutes left. The ending's a little out there, but it's a good example of character development on Jim's part, who matures from a naive young man into someone more bloodthirsty, almost a duplicate of John. His actions go far beyond survival; he becomes obsessed with physically stopping John. It makes you wonder how deep Jim's mind cracks at the end, which might be answered in the sequel ("The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting"), to be released next month, in March.

"The Hitcher" is a great psychological thriller, complete with a good cast--Hauer and Howell are perfect for their parts--and plenty of action, scares, and car chases. I wouldn't consider it a slasher film, since most of the killing occurs off-camera and is left up to the viewer to imagine--a much more effective method, I thought--but it does have its moments, like the human finger in the French fries bit. This movie will definitely make you think twice (if that much) before picking up a hitchhiker.

Rutger Hauer is imensely scary as a (not so freaky killer like Jason or Michael, nor a gruesome killer) but a sharp, haunting character with an icy personality. C Thomas Howell is very good as a young teenager. He starts off in the film to be a bit geeky, but once he meets Hauer he starts to get a little freaky himself. They are basically the two main characters in this.

The film -- as you probably know -- is about C Thomas Howell delivering a drive-away car (let me just say I don't like the review from Digibiong! because he says there is a mistake on the license plate of the car, but it's a drive-away car so it doesn't matter) and he has to deliver it to San Dieago, on the way he picks up a stranger on the road, he seems like a nice guy, but he turns out to be quite psychotic. Howell is able to push the stranger out of the car and carry on down the road, but the hitcher isn't done yet, he starts to play a deadly game with Howell, like getting the police onto him, framing him, killing people in front of his eyes and all stuff like that. The film doesn't drag at the start, it starts off straight away with Howell picking the stranger up and it gets darker and darker every time.

The gore in this film isn't that bad, we do HEAR a woman get pulled apart, but we don't SEE it. We never really do see a lot of deaths happen in the film, but I think that's what makes the film scary. It can be very atmospheric at times, but a lot of the scary parts happen in the day-time. When we come to the conclusion it gets a little dissapointing since it doesn't go on for long and I was expecting a great confrontation.

So, that's "the hitcher", one of my favourite movies. Road movies are my favourite genre of movies and here are a couple more good ones:

Breakdown
Convoy
Duel
Hitcher 2: I've been waiting