The Hitcher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Hitcher | |
|---|---|
 The Hitcher theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Harmon |
| Produced by | David Bombyk Kip Ohman |
| Written by | Eric Red |
| Starring | C. Thomas Howell Rutger Hauer Jennifer Jason Leigh Jeffrey DeMunn |
| Music by | Mark Isham |
| Cinematography | John Seale |
| Editing by | Frank J. Urioste |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
| Release date(s) | February 21, 1986 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6,000,000 US (est.) |
| Followed by | The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hitcher is a 1986 Hollywood horror / thriller film, directed by Robert Harmon and written by Eric Red. The film stars Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
In addition to scenes shot in the studio, filming locations include Amboy, California, Barstow, California, Death Valley National Park in California, Imperial County, California and Lake Mead in Nevada.
The film spawned a sequel in 2003, The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting, with C. Thomas Howell returning to the role of Jim Halsey. With the replacement of Hauer by Jake Busey, the sequel posed none of the existential questions of the first film and struggled to find favour with admirers of the original. A remake was filmed and released on January 19, 2007; directed by Dave Meyers with Sean Bean playing the hitcher.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), a young man transporting a car from Chicago to California, spots a man hitchhiking and gives him a ride. The man, John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), is a brooding, soft spoken man; when Jim passes a stranded car, however, Ryder's persona 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 knocks him out of the ajar passenger door.
A 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 hacked to death.
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 finally loses Ryder at an abandoned gas station, which explodes when the gas pumps are destroyed by Ryder running through them with a pickup truck. Jim retreats to a roadside diner, where he meets a pretty young waitress named Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who serves him french fries. Jim complacently eats the french fries in solitude, until discovering that one of them 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. At some point, Ryder pickpocketed 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 that Ryder has visited the station and murdered everyone there. Jim, panicked, steals a gun and runs from the station house.
Jim comes to a pay phone and sees two cops pull up. With his gun pointed at them, Jim takes the squad car hostage. 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 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. Nash takes Jim's gun and pulls it on the two officers, and she and Jim flee in a car. They're chased by the police, and Jim is forced to blow out their tires and cause a pair of cars 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 two Mack trucks, threatening to tear her in half if he doesn't speak to Jim. The authorities, 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 could slip from the clutch, killing Nash anyway. Furious, Ryder hits the accelerator, ripping Nash in half and killing her. Police swarm the truck and arrest Ryder.
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 van with a SWAT team armed with shotguns. As Jim is loaded into a police car to be taken to his family, he snaps and decides to murder Ryder; he steals a policeman's gun and hijacks the squad car, chasing the SWAT van. As Jim pulls up on it, the back doors fly open, to reveal the entire SWAT team 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 and repeatedly turning the key in the ignition; 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. Turning back, Jim is startled to find Ryder 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 watch the blood red sun set over the horizon.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role | Actor | Role | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C. Thomas Howell | Jim Halsey | Billy Green Bush | Trooper Donner | |
| Rutger Hauer | John Ryder | Jack Thibeau | Trooper Prestone | |
| Jennifer Jason Leigh | Nash | Armin Shimerman | Interrogation Sergeant | |
| Jeffrey DeMunn | Captain Esteridge | Gene Davis | Trooper Dodge | |
| John M. Jackson | Sergeant Starr | Jon Van Ness | Trooper Hapscomb | |
| Henry Darrow | Trooper Hancock | Tony Epper | Trooper Conners | |
| Tom Spratley | Proprietor | Colin Campbell | Construction Man |
[edit] Remake
A remake was filmed and released on January 19, 2007; the director (Dave Meyers) changed the main character into a woman. Sean Bean plays the dangerous hitcher named John Ryder. The other two main characters, Grace and Jim, are played by Sophia Bush, from One Tree Hill, and Zachary Knighton.
The WGA awarded Eric Red (who wrote the 1986 original) a screenwriting credit for the remake, despite the plot of the remake not being close to the original film.
[edit] Trivia
- This film was #34 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
