2.5/4  www.neverpickupstrangers.com
This is one of two actually good hitchiker films. Don't watch the remake, cause... Well Michael Bay had something to do with it so you know how that turned out... This is a great film though. A classic and made people really think to never... (read full)

4/4  The Hitcher Quick Review
This is a great film! I loved the hitcher character, was brilliantly calm and terrifying at the same time. The atmosphere was excellent.

2.5/4  The Hitcher Quick Review
It moves a little too slow for my taste, but the Hitcher has some tense scenes and Rutger Hauer is damn scary as a smart, sneaky serial killer. It builds and builds and the end is kind of letdown for me - even if it is dark.

3/5 Road-Killer
  by Mark Eremite (Seoul, South Korea)
"The Hitcher" is a so-so film that desperately wants to be a killer music video. Starring Sophia Bush (that One Tree Hill girl who is so pretty it makes my eyes water) and Zachary Knighton (I'd never heard of him before, but he looks like the type who'd date Sophia Bush), the film wastes no time with pleasantries. The two lovers hit the road, and then the road hits back.

The road in my oh-so-clever analogy turns out to be John Ryder, the hitcher, a man with a grudge against life. Literally. In one of his first lines of the film, Ryder admits that the reason he tortures, maims, and kills people is because he wants someone to stop him. This sort of Swiftean take on nihilism is often used by scriptwriters to give a character license to indulge in flat-eyed melodrama (emotive beef jerky, I call it), but Sean Bean -- as the unflagging madman -- lets his desperation and his senseless rage simmer without boiling over into false theatrics. Bean is really the reason to watch this film.

It's too bad he's not in it more than he is. Most of the time we are forced to watch Bush and Knighton wander around making typically bad decisions and then griping or whining about it to each other when there's a break in the action.

I don't blame the actors. These sorts of brash bonanzas of violence and destruction don't really need much in the way of plotting to do their job, but they do need some kind of decent writing. I mean, take a look at Spielberg's Duel. For a movie with such a minimal plot and perhaps two pages of dialogue, this film works macabre magic. "The Hitcher," in lieu of compelling characters and a solid build-up of tension has, instead, the rat-a-tat-tat subtlety (and pace) of a semi-automatic. Short bursts of loud chaos, interspersed with brief moments of silence. You don't want that barrel to melt.

I give the film a thumbs up for its dervishes, for the car chases (set to blaring Nine Inch Nails), the near-misses, and the bold direct hits (I'll admit that I was shocked and surprised by the scene with the semi-truck and the chains). But, just like the (lack of) beliefs of the title character, the movie doesn't seem to care about much of anything, making it easy for the viewer to feel likewise.

5/5 Fantastic Hitcher remake!
  by StarRaezer (mountain home, idaho United States)
I was a huge fan of the orginal film The Hitcher, and was very excited to see a remake being made in 2006. I was reluctant to rent it because I aboslutely loved the orginial. It was one of my all time scariest, creepiest movies that I've carried images of in my mind for two decades.

Now, I am happy to say--I've just rented The Hitcher and don't want to return it to the videio store! This movie is a keeper! The special effects are fabulous, the actors superb, and I am thrilled and delighted with this remake.

I feel it is a true piece of creative and thrillingly creepy and eerily wonderful horror!

Thank you for this film!

Sincerely,
Star

5/5 Lethal And Jolting - One Of The Year's Top Horror Movies
  by Stephen B. O'Blenis (Nova Scotia, Canada)
An improved version of the already high-caliber 1986 "Hitcher" starring Rutger Hauer, this new incarnation casts Sean Bean ("Lord Of The Rings", "The Dark", "Silent Hill") as an even deadlier and more twisted title villain, and Sophia Bush ("Stay Alive") and Zachary Knighton ("The Prince And Me") as young lovers Grace and Jim, who on a road trip encounter the hitcher in the middle of a rainstorm, and become the prime targets of his obsession.

The Hitcher has been upped to where he's about as dangerous as a human being can be without raising the question of the supernatural. No remorse, apparantly no fear of death or pain, disturbingly with no apparant motivation, indisputably evil, and yet retaining an undeniable charismatic edge, as well as a huge air of mystery (his background, and even his real name, are never revealed) the character slashes and shotgun-blasts his way into the upper tier as one of the most instantly memorable killers to rampage across the screen in recent years. Zachary Knighton and the smolderingly gorgeous and cute-as-a-button Sophia Bush are likable and believable as the main couple of the film. Strong performances are turned in by the rest of the cast as well, and the tight flow of the movie encompasses psychological terror and suspense, up-close visceral carnage, and some of the most intense and high-octane highway chase/battle action ever seen, way above that seen in many higher profile action blockbusters with five times the budget. It attains a highly active tension and tightness the likes of which have not quite been reached by many of its more famous horror-thriller hybrid peers.

"The Hitcher" delivers on all counts it takes on, and is highly recommended for fans of such movies as the '86 original, "Highwaymen" (by original "Hitcher" director Robert Harmon), the "Hills Have Eyes" movies, and "The Vanishing".

1/5 Leave this hitcher on the roadside and get the original.
  by Steven Hedge (Somewhere "East of Eden")
If there was ever a pointless remake of a film, then this one is it.

Not even Sean Bean can salvage this wreck of a film and I'm a huge fan of his work and it matters little if he's a bad guy, as in National Treasure, or an average "Joe", as in Flightplan. This film offers no reasonable reason for remaking a cult classic. This film is an almost shot for shot remake of The Hitcher with C. Thomas Howell and the great Rutger Hauer but lacks all the genuine chills and suspense that the original had.

In the original, Hauer's hitcher was more evil incarnate than a real flesh and blood character and this film's flaw is that Bean seems all too real. He's just your average psychopath that we hope to never meet whereas Hauer's hitcher is was an evil presence we feared finding us no matter where we might be. He was soulless and happy to be so. Bean's hitcher seems to have not only a soul, but also a conscious. He wants to be stopped. It's like a plea for help. We got none of that "touchy feely" crap with Hauer's villain.

To continue to berate this remake is rather pointless and so is this remake. Go rent the original shocker and enjoy some genuine thrills instead of this senseless mess.


5/5 Intense Thriller
  by smokee (Las Vegas)
This is one of the better thriller movies I have seen. The mix of suspense and violence is just right and will keep you watching until the end.