Product Details

• Actors: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jeffrey DeMunn, John M. Jackson
• Directors: Robert Harmon
• Writers: Eric Red
• Producers: Charles R. Meeker, David Bombyk, Edward S. Feldman, Kip Ohman, Paul Lewis
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: December 13, 1993
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301934229
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,200 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Steven Spielberg's first feature film, 1971's Duel, is set on a desert highway. It stars Dennis Weaver as a driver being pursued by a menacing truck, which is following him with all the vengeance of the ancient furies. In this spiritual update from 1984, C. Thomas Howell plays a guy taking a drive-away car from Chicago to San Diego. On a whim, in the rain, and against his better judgment, he picks up a hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer). The hitcher quickly admits to being a murdering psychopath, and once Howell finally gets him out of his car, he is pursued with all the vengeance of the ancient furies. We're never sure if the hitcher is a figment of his imagination, making Howell a schizophrenic killer, or if he's real and Howell is the random victim of a wandering madman, which is how his potential new girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) thinks of him. Either way, The Hitcher is great fun, kinda scary, and teetering on the brink of "must see." --Andy Spletzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, horrible DVD, August 14, 2003

By 

D. K. Malone (earth) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Hitcher (DVD)

The reason I bought a DVD player almost four years ago was that I finally saw for myself the drastic increase in picture quality from VHS. I can tolerate DVD releases that skimp on extras like behind the scenes documentaries and director commentary, but I do demand good picture quality. This DVD fails to deliver. It doesn't look too bad when the scenes occur in daylight, but when you reach the point in the story where darkness falls and the scenes were shot at night, the extremely low quality of the film print and digital transfer come shining through. I haven't seen this much grain and artifacting since... well, ever. It's even worse than the "gray market" DVD of the Twin Peaks pilot episode. Buy if you must, but as for me I wish I'd held out for a better edition.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest horror movies to come out of the 80's, March 5, 2005

By 

N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hitcher (DVD)

Some call the original Hitcher a horror movie, others classify it under the suspense genre, etc. All that aside, this little flick did more than turn a few heads back when it came out in the mid-80's, featuring Rutger Hauer's ice cold performance as a psychotic killer who hitches a ride with a young man (C. Thomas Howell) whom he terrorizes and frames for his crimes as the film rolls on. Considering the time the Hitcher was made, it's surprisingly not predictable, and loaded with taut suspense, with great performances from Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh (whose character has the most infamous death in the whole film), and especially Hauer who is disturbingly perfect as psychopathic killer John Ryder. Hopefully the Hitcher will be re-released on DVD with loads of features and a much better picture transfer (the one on this disc is terribly grainy), and considering all the DVD double dipping of late, that possibility isn't entirely unlikely.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See this version, not the remake, January 28, 2007

By 

James G. Greenhill "Jim Greenhill" (Durango, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hitcher (DVD)

Why Hollywood remakes movies such as "The Hitcher," "Psycho" or "The Manchurian Candidate" defies explanation. All of these should be seen in their original versions, not as remakes.
Every review I've read of the 2007 version of "The Hitcher" has been horrible, and I don't plan on wasting my money on it.
See this 1986 version. The combination of C. Thomas Howell, Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh; plus the landscape, music and lighting; plus Robert Harmon's direction made for a must-see thriller/horror classic. It is a work of art. If you like reading pulp/noir/crime fiction, you'll love watching this cult classic which succeeds as much because of perfect casting and perfect choices of locations as anything else.
But remaking this is like repainting classic art or rewriting Shakespeare -- I mean, it's just downright stupid and also doomed from the get-go.
[Five stars for the movie; I'm not rating the quality of this DVD (see reviews below).]