| REVIEWER | RATING & REVIEW |
 | Spike65 (13)
07/19/2008 | Excellent low-budget thriller with Rutger Hauer playing his usual great villain. Very intense film. Probably not a great family movie though.
(0 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 1 agree) |
 | musicprof (1)
08/27/2005 | A must see film on all levels. Rutger Hauer (sp?) was THE movie villan. He always has a knack for portraying psychotic people. Howell really stepped it up to play the everyman hero. The suspense don't build throughout the movie, it simply blasts off and you are hanging on the entire film. The movie will leave you paranoid for Howell's charector until the final credits roll.
(1 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | Diana52 (0)
03/09/2005 | GREAT FILM - DOES NOT NEED A RE-MAKE.
RUTGER HAUER AT HIS BEST!!!
(0 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | Jamie McBain (50)
06/24/2004 | Great and creepy film. Rutger Hauer is especially great as the pyschotic hitchiker from hell. It also teaches an important lesson too... never pick up a hitchiker.
(1 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | VirileVagabond (37)
03/12/2004 |  Released in 1986 and directed by Robert Harmon, The Hitcher is a surprisingly deep and entertaining horror thriller. For the uninitiated, the story involves a young man, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), who takes a job driving a car from Chicago to San Diego. To relieve the boredom, he throws caution to the wind and picks up a hitchhiker, John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). Ryder turns out to be a psychopath and tries to kill Halsey; however, he escapes. Nevertheless, Halsey is not through with the hitcher yet as Ryder decides to torment him by leaving a trail of dead bodies to find despite Halsey's best efforts to warn others. Along the way, Halsey becomes the ultimate suspect, but is befriended by a young waitress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who helps him prove his innocence. While there is not really anything new with the basic concept, what makes this film work is the genuinely creepy aura that Rutger Hauer exudes through the screen and the Average Joe portrayal by C. Thomas Howell. The viewer can easily put themselves in the driver's position, and the film reflects the natural fear of letting the outside into our cozy, protected confines of modern society. The bottom line is that The Hitcher is a horror movie that relies on a feeling of helplessness from being outwitted rather than being out muscled.
(3 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | phlip-tout (0)
01/01/2004 | Rutger Hauer was great. I'll never pick up a hitchhiker without having a little chat first. That kid was stupid, lacked a self-preservation instinct and downright just wasn't paranoid enough to survive in this violent country. Didn't he ever watch the news?!
(1 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | StanUzbeck (16)
10/15/2003 | Awesome movie! I think that Rutger Hauer is best when he's playing a villain, and he is truly frightening in this film. He is just a lunatic who enjoys killing people, for absolutely no reason. He has no past, and very arbitrary motives for killing people who make the mistake of picking him up hitch-hiking. The whole story is about how he refuses to kill this one guy, and decides instead to torment him by killing everyone else around him. Some parts were pretty silly, like how Hauer was able to bring down a police helicopter with a small-caliber handgun while tearing across a rocky desert in a pickup truck, driving with one hand and shooting out the window with the other, but I have an extremely high tolerance for that kind of thing so I thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend this to any fans of low-budget thrillers, although all of them have likely already seen it.
(2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
| Rainbow72315 (0)
10/07/2003 | Good Advice!
(0 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
| Thorne (3)
12/16/2001 | This movie actually kick alot of ass. Much like this falls release, Joy Ride except face to face rather than through radio. A young man picks up the wrong hitchhiker and some of the coolest suspence/horror scenes insue. Rutgar Hauer is frightningly believable as the homocidal maniac stalking our hero. our hero has some really bad luck too. Jennifer Jason Lee puts in a noteable performance and it will just tear you intwo when you see what happens to her. Sick, Fun and creepy. The Hitcher is a great B movie.
(4 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | magellan (174)
12/06/2001 | What a great movie this is. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I remember it being one creepy flick... two scenes in particular really scared me - the one where C. Thomas Howell looks out of the car he is riding in to see Rutger Hauer riding in a station wagon with a family, with kids sitting on his lap... you just know that something terrible is going to happen. The most memorable scene from the movie may have been C. Thomas Howell getting an order of fries at the diner only to find.... well, I won't give it away. Very scary, very well done movie.
(2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | oldpompous (0)
12/06/2001 | Amazing movie. Sustains an almost unbearable level of tension the entire running time.This was the first movie for a lot of people: Eric Red, who wrote and directed, the cinematographer, whose name slips my mind, Mark Isham, the composer. Rutger Hauer is flawless in the title role. C. Thomas Howell is just good, but the story and direction are so strong, it doesn't matter. At first glance, the movie is a simple thriller, but it's really about the master/apprentice, father/son relationship. Never seen that done in a thriller.
(2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
| 1-11 OF 11 | View All |
