Wonderfully offbeat film!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The ultimate thrill-ride of one of the best road psycho action thrillers ever, my personal favorite number 1 thriller ever. The Hitcher (1986) is the ultimate action classic, the best road psycho thriller ever. I love this movie to death I love it. I love road thriller movies like: Joy Ride (2001), Road Games (1981), Duel (1971), Jeepers Creepers (2001), When Strangers Appears (2001) and more. The Hitcher is really my personal number 1 favorite road psycho thriller film from the 80's, I saw it as a teen when I was in high school. I got finally after 14 years the DVD on Region 2 after long search I finally got this film in my DVD collection today. I don't know why this movie is not release on Blu-ray I don't get it, why is the remake on Blu-ray but not the original is beyond me. Directed by Robert Harmon and written by Eric Red and starring: Rutger Hauer C. 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. Lot of good and eerie atmosphere too. Great gory, huge explosions like the gas station that blows up only in First Blood (1982) you will see gas station been blow up and in here. 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. Thomas Howell) who plays with him a game of cat and mouse. He frames Jim Halsey for the murders in which Jim did not commit. Jim is on the run from the maniac "Hitcher" who try's to kill him and plays a cat and mouse game with him. 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. The Hitcher is a cult classic ultimate thriller-ride the best film of all time. 10/10

A lot of things! But modern movies just don't have good scripts. The casts all look fake. The soundtracks aren't very good. It's like movies are too easy to make and anyone who is from an elite background can Skype with the studio heads and make some awful stuff. This movie The Hitcher is awesome. It's scary. Well written. And Rutger Hauer just owns the whole movie as a crazy guy who seemingly wants to test this kid in a battle of good v evil. Tons of symbolism and good storytelling.

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 screenplay by Eric Red has a deep understanding for tension build-ups and rhythmic pay-offs that I had no time the feeling of being lost or dulled-out within the 90 minutes hypnotic editorial by Frank J. Urioste, who also edited "Die Hard" (1988) and "Basic Instinct" (1992). "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)

This unstoppable psycho on the loose film has strong links to two other classic thrillers which came before it: Rutger Hauer, as the indestructible maniac on the loose, has some of Schwarzenegger's menace as THE TERMINATOR; and the chase through the deserts is a lot like DUEL, except with Hauer replacing the mysterious truck. THE HITCHER has a great pace which just doesn't let up until the very end of the film, and all the time you can feel events building towards a showdown as more and more violence erupts on to the screen.Written by Eric Red (BODY PARTS), the plot is both intelligent and intriguing, so you just sit back and marvel at the way Hauer manages to implicate Howell more and more in the various crimes he commits, the most memorable moment being the shooting of the two policemen (just after Howell says he will give himself up), for which of course Howell gets the blame. The feeling of helplessness against this psycho is done well, and Howell is believable as the boy caught up in all the violence. He's no Bruce Willis hero type, but just an everyday person who screams and sweats a lot and barely manages to survive against Hauer's relentless onslaught of knifings, shootings, massacres, and brutality.It is Hauer's performance which sticks in the mind however, and it is a career-best role. Hauer is perfectly cast as the maniac, a sadistic psychopath who coldly kills with no remorse; his is a superb, text-book example of what a true psychopath is like, with the bulging eyes, maniacally grinning face, and heartless jokes. Hauer does his job so well that you almost begin to wish that he does win out against Howell's snivelling, wimpish hero at the end, as he has a lot of charisma in this film.The pair are joined by an accomplished supporting cast, including a young turn from Jennifer Jason Leigh, who brings a touch of warmth to the story. The sheriff from THE BLOB also turns up as, yes, you guessed it, a sheriff, and Armin Shimerman, best known to sci-fi fans for his role in STAR TREK, has a tiny role as an interrogator. There are lots and lots of cool action scenes to move things along, with cars bouncing, rolling and exploding, lots of shooting, and scenes of carnage where the blood does flow quite thickly (the moment where Howell discovers a dog, licking the blood from a corpse, is truly horrific).There are many moments to savour in the film and which stay in the memory long after viewing. The bit where Hauer nonchalantly shoots a helicopter out of the sky to even the odds; when Howell finds a severed finger in his burger and chips; the abandoned car, with blood dripping out of the door (a sudden moment of subtlety here which is far more gut-churning than more visceral images would have been); the bloody carnage in a police station; and the set-piece at the end. These moments of inspired originality are what help to propel THE HITCHER into classic status. And it'll certainly make you think twice the next time to see someone thumbing a lift along the highway...