Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) picks up a murderous hitchhiker, John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), on a cross country drive. While he manages to toss him out of the car, the hitchhiker follows him, killing people and pinning it on Halsey. Only Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a roadside waitress, believes him.
There’s a reason why short films exist. Sometimes, you have one point and just enough plot to support it, so a nice 20-minutes movie will do. And there lies the problem with The Hitcher, it’s a short film that goes on way too long. To fill up that time, writer Eric Red elongates scenes that should have gone much quicker, and sticks in one improbable event after another. Most involve Ryder appearing in places he shouldn’t and doing things he couldn’t. The silliest of these is shooting down a helicopter with a pistol from a pickup driving over rough ground (and the helicopter falls on the road precisely in front of the police cars so they can all crash), but Ryder’s magical appearance in a truck next to the police car that is holding Halsey and then in Halsey’s motel room are far more destructive to the story. The tension that was palpable at the beginning, when a psycho that you could meet on an empty road sat menacingly next to an everyman, is drained away when it all becomes a fantasy. In another prime unbelievable scene, Halsey tries to warn a family about the murderer in the back seat of their station wagon (with their two kids) by speeding up to them on the wrong side of the road, honking his horn, yelling, and swerving. Is there any reason to do that besides as a plot device? Why do things to make the killer act? How about going to the nearest phone and calling the police?
As for the acting, Howell is not up to the role, and Leigh isn’t given enough of a part for it to matter. The police are clichéd movie cops, so again, acting doesn’t matter. But Hauer elevates what could have been a total loss. His charismatic maniac is creepier than Slasher mainstays Jason, Michael, and Freddy, and Hauer does it all with a smile and a few gestures (how can he make an almost loving facial caress so psychotic?). This could have been a short, realistic thriller or an urban legend nightmare, but due to an erratic script, it’s neither.