The Hitcher: Movie Review

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The next Horror film that I found worthwhile is The Hitcher.  The movie came out in 2007, and was written by  Claudio Carvalho.  It may not be widely known like a lot of films that would be considered a classic, but it is a classic to me.

I would rate the movie seven and a half stars out of ten.  It is a great film to watch, but the plot gets a little redundant after a while (cat and mouse death game).  However, I would still recommend the movie to anyone interested in horror films.

What happens in The Hitcher?  – Synopsis coming up; If you have not seen the movie you might want to be cautious in reading the rest of the article!

The tagline to the Hitcher is; Never Pick Up Strangers.

Hitcher starts out with two college students giving a ride to John Ryder.  The ride takes a turn for the worst when Ryder turns psychopathic and threatens their life.  The film afterwards basically is them trying to get away from Ryder and save their life. 

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The morning after the incident in the car, the couple (Jim and Grace) are continuing their road trip when they see John Ryder in the back of a car that of a family.  Jim drives up besides the family trying to tell them that they have a killer in the backseat.  While trying to tell the family, the couple gets in an accident and total their car.  They decide to walk for help when they see the family’s car stopped alongside the road, and everyone except the father is dead.  They take the car and try to find a hospital, stopping at a restaurant along the way to call for help.  Unfortunately, the policeman think that the couple killed the family and take them to jail. 

Inside the jailhouse, Ryder kills the policemen and continues in the game of killing Jim and Grace. 

Jim and Grace eventually get out of the jail, and try to make a run for it.  They steal a cop car (from a officer that was killed by Ryder) and just start driving.  Shortly after, they see that there are a bunch of police cars following them, and a helicopter above trying to get them to pull over.  However, the police chase ends when Ryder comes speeding from behind with a gun. 

In the next scene Jim and Grace find, and sneak into a hotel room.  Jim apologizes for getting them into the fiasco and then goes to find a pay phone.  After a while, the scene goes into Grace waking up and thinking Jim is next to her, but it is Ryder.  She struggles, but gets away and hides in the bathroom.   After the drama in that scene, the film goes outside where Grace tries to find Jim.  Where she finds Jim, and the scene that follows is not for the faint of heart.  Jim had his arms tied to the back of a rig, and his feet tied to the back of another.  Ryder was in front of the vehicle, with his foot on the clutch.  Grace climbed in the passengers seat, trying to stop Ryder with the gun.  The police (whatever police were still alive at this point) showed up just as Ryder let off the clutch and Jim got ripped in half.

The last scene is probably my favorite scene in the movie, and I think it’s understandable why.  The woman is the hero. 

After Jim dies, Ryder is taken to the state penitentiary in one van, and the state police officer is driving Grace back to her hometown.  Ryder secretly works his way out of his handcuffs and kills the three officers in the van.  The van crashes into another vehicle, causing the officer driving Grace to crash as well.   The officer’s knee was pinned due to the crash so he could not get out to save him or grace.  He told Grace to run to a safe place and wait for help, but she told him that she was done running.  She got out of the vehicle and walked to the van that Ryder was still in.  After she got there, he opened the back doors, took her gun, locked her inside, and then set the van on fire.  While starting to suffocate in the smoke, Grace was able to find one of the officers shotguns and get out of the van.  It was too late to save the officer, but she walked up to Ryder and shot him twice.  The second time, he fell to his knees and said, ” It feels good, doesn’t it?”  Grace answered back, “I don’t feel a thing,” and shot him one last time. 

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It is unusual to see a female being the hero, or the last one standing in a film like this.  That is why it is one of my favorites to this day.

Have you seen this film?  If so, what did you think about it?