* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Is John Ryder is a SerialKiller capable of seemingly impossible feats, but otherwise a normal man, or some sort of supernatural entity? Does he want Jim to kill him to turn him into a killer like him, because he genuinely wants to die, or for some other reason?
** When the cops Donner, Dodge and Starr arrested Jim, are they just {{Inspector Javert}}s [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure who after interrogation started think he could be innocent, but still booked and jailed him out of police protocol until Starr's other colleagues he mentioned could fully confirm Jim's innocence]], or are they AmbiguouslyEvil {{Dirty Cop}}s who couldn't care less whether Jim is innocent or not and that they just want an excuse to imprison him.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The haunting, [[Music/EnnioMorricone Morricone]][=/=][[Music/BrianEno Eno]]-esque electronic score by Music/MarkIsham, inspired heavily by the former's work on ''Film/TheThing1982''. For a sample, here's the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69vqdHFv9vo end credits theme]].
* CatharsisFactor: [[spoiler:Through the whole film, John Ryder is murdering innocent people and framing Jim for it, and eventually murders Jim's love interest, Nash. Watching Jim ram his car into Ryder then blow him away with a shotgun is incredibly goddamned satisfying]].
* CompleteMonster: ''The Hitcher'' films have {{hostile hitchhiker}}s who [[SerialKiller kill many]], [[FamilyExtermination families]], [[WouldHurtAChild children]], and [[CopKiller cops]] included:
** Original film: [[DissonantSerenity John Ryder]] is a mysterious vagabond who gains a twisted obsession with the young hero Jim Halsey and begins hunting him down in an attempt to hurt and [[TheCorrupter corrupt]] him. After terrifying him once, Ryder is given a ride by a family of three and murders them all gruesomely, including the little children. Ryder sets up Jim as the murderer as he continues racking up a body count. Ryder's most infamous act is to tie Jim's LoveInterest, a waitress named Nash, between two trucks and [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe tear her in half]]. Twisted and monstrous, Ryder is only interested in turning Jim into as much a monster as he is and [[AxCrazy killing as many people as possible]].
** ''I've Been Waiting'': [[ForTheEvulz Jack]] is yet another sadistic hitchhiker who [[ForTheEvulz kills to alleviate his boredom]]. Having killed others before encountering Jim and Maggie, Jack at one point kills a trucker to take his truck, scalping the man to use his hair as a wig. Murdering Maggie's parents and blaming her and Jim for the murders, Jack fatally wounds Jim and later captures Maggie, putting her in a water tower that will kill her should she make any erratic movements. Once Maggie escapes, Jack follows suit, killing several innocents and cops in an attempt to [[FrameUp frame Maggie]], stopping at nothing to have her arrested.
** 2007 remake: [[AdaptationalJerkass John Ryder]] here lacks the mystique and cold refinement of the original. Instead a [[HeManWomanHater vicious misogynist]], Ryder slaughters a family to prove a point, children included, before arriving at a police station to massacre everyone there. Trying to rape heroine Grace, Ryder instead [[ForcedToWatch forces her to watch]] her boyfriend Jim [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe pulled in half]] before slaughtering the cops arresting him while delighting in trying to [[TheCorrupter turn Grace into a killer]].
* CreepyAwesome: John Ryder is a dangerous, terrifying, and possibly supernatural SerialKiller, but he also is a supreme badass who takes out an entire police station with his bare hands, takes out an attack helicopter with a pistol, and manages to break out of a highly secured prison bus without a scratch.
* CriticalDissonance: The original. To name one example, it's one the few films Creator/RogerEbert has given a flat out zero.
* FanonDiscontinuity: A sequel and remake both exist, however fans would prefer to think otherwise.
* FoeYayShipping: With a generous dollop of HoYay mixed in.
* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Captain Esteridge]].
** [[RabidCop Trooper Lyle Hancock]] in the original film, thanks to his actor Henry Darrow's [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct emotional acting]] even though it is just a small part. Also see OneSceneWonder below.
* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Despite being a bit character actor who was best known for his reoccurring supporting role as Manolito Montoya in the 1967–1971 [=NBC=] western series ''The High Chaparral'' and being relatively known at the time for his role as Franchise/{{Zorro}} in the 1981 animated series ''WesternAnimation/{{The New Adventures of Zorro|1981}}'' (through voice acting) and in the short-lived series ''Zorro and Son'' in 1983, Henry Darrow's OneSceneWonder performance in terms of emotive expression is quite impressive.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Jim is facing off against an extremely smart and resourceful Killer who Murders indiscriminately. Creator/CThomasHowell would later play an extremely smart and resourceful Serial Killer known as "The Reaper" on ''Series/CriminalMinds''.
** Character actor Gene Davis plays a fully-clothed blue denim clad police officer who gets killed by a SerialKiller. Three years earlier, Davis inversely plays a [[FullFrontalAssault fully-unclothed]] SerialKiller who gets killed by a police officer played by Creator/CharlesBronson in another crime thriller ''Film/TenToMidnight''.
** Henry Darrow plays a state trooper who happens to be a VigilanteMan, which is interesting as Darrow had played the iconic vigilante Franchise/{{Zorro}} in the 1981 animated series ''WesternAnimation/{{The New Adventures of Zorro|1981}}'' (through voice acting) and in the short-lived series ''Zorro and Son'' in 1983 and would later be well known for his role as Zorro's father in the [[Series/Zorro1990 1990-1993 television series]].
* JerkassWoobie: [[RabidCop Trooper Lyle Hancock]], who is visibly filled with both a mixture of grief and rage when confronting Jim [[RevengeBeforeReason after thinking he killed two friends of his in the force]].
* MoralEventHorizon: Ryder killing the family with children and [[spoiler:tearing Nash in two]] was simple sadism and unnecessary.
* {{Narm}}:
** When Sergeant Starr is being licked by the dog, the actor looks like he's barely avoiding grinning.
** The remake also suffers from a lot of this. The scene in particular, where Jim has his lower torso ripped off by Ryder looks absolutely humiliating, and despite, or even because of, the fact that the scene is more graphic than the original where Nash is is the one torn in half, it does nothing to make the scene less unintentionally comical, if anything it just increases the narm factor, because of how gratuitous it is.
* NightmareRetardant: A big reason why the remake failed is because it suffers greatly from many scenes that fall under this. Most notably, the scenes of Ryder murdering the family in the car and Jim being torn in half by two trucks (originally Nash) being shown graphically on-screen are ironically less disturbing than the versions of said scenes from the original film, where the fact that they weren't shown explicitly in the original gave the viewer more of a sense of eeriness, which the remake complete ruins by doing the opposite.
* OneSceneWonder:
** [[RabidCop Trooper Lyle Hancock]]'s initial LoopholeAbuse to personally execute Jim Halsey ("Wipe it off!") and eventual confrontation with Jim and Nash. Hancock maybe just another officer on Jim's trail, but his own personal agenda of vengeance as a result of Ryder's killings, his actor's emotional acting and fact his actor had previously played Franchise/{{Zorro}} in 1981 and 1983 that gives off a vibe Hancock could be a HeroOfAnotherStory makes enough of a deep impact.
** Also, do not forget Sergeant Starr's interrogation of Jim and his eventual opinion that Jim maybe's innocent.
** Also, Starr's abrasive subordinates Jack Donner and Dodge, played by veteran character actors Billy Green Bush in one of many of his supporting policeman roles in film and TV and Gene Davis ironically aka AxCrazy [[FullFrontalAssault birthday suit-wearing]] nemesis of Creator/CharlesBronson Warren Stacy from ''10 to Midnight'', who both initially arrested Jim.
** Also, the complying policemen Jim was forced to take hostage which in turn gets him in contact with Esteridge for the first time, Trooper Prestone and Trooper Conners, with the former of the two cop hostages being played [[AssholeVictim one of Jennifer Spencer's rapists and kills]] from the ''Film/DirtyHarry'' sequel ''Film/SuddenImpact'' that was theatrically released three years prior to this film and the latter of the two being played by the Kid's abusive vagrant guardian of a so-called "protector" Steve the Tramp from ''Film/DickTracy'' that would be theatrically released four years later after this film.
* QuestionableCasting: Many did not like Creator/ZacharyKnighton as Jim Halsey in the remake, since he not only felt miscast as Jim, but also gave the character a weaker performance compared to C. Thomas Howell's performance as Jim in the original.
* ReplacementScrappy: [[FinalGirl Grace]] from the remake. An unoriginal, perfect character replacing the final ''boy'' of the original didn't go over well with fans of the first film.
* RetroactiveRecognition: The interrogation inspector is played by Creator/ArminShimerman. Yes, the same guy who would later become well known for voicing [[Franchise/RatchetAndClank Dr. Nefarious]] and [[VideoGame/BioShock Andrew Ryan]].
* {{Sequelitis}}:
** Yes, this movie had a Direct To Video Sequel, although it ''did'' have Creator/JakeBusey as the psycho, [[JustHereForGodzilla which is reason enough to rent it]].
** That, and Creator/KariWuhrer.
*** Or the {{Narm}} flowing freely through the movie.
*** Ironically, by virtue of adding [[TheScrappy Grace]] in the movie and [[spoiler: having killed off both Jim Halsey and Lt. Esteridge]], the remake actually ends up feeling more like it's redoing the SEQUEL instead of the original.
* SpecialEffectFailure: The tractor pull scene in the remake.
* {{Squick}}: The remake has a great deal of {{Gorn}}, but the scene where Ryder slips his hand out of his cuffs (consisting of snapping his own thumb out of place with a loud "crack", and skinning his hand, resulting in a bloody mess), is especially enough to make the stomach turn.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Some moviegoers felt that Trooper Lyle Hancock, one of the InspectorJavert policemen pursuing Jim Halsey who is the most {{vigilante|Man}} and [[JerkassWoobie grief-strickenly ruthless]] out of the other cops, should have been given a larger pivotal supporting role with more screen time as one of the most [[RecurringExtra frequent]] and [[{{Determinator}} persistent]] {{Hero Antagonist}}s on Jim's tail, while acting as the irrational VigilanteInjustice-commiting InspectorJavert {{Foil}} rival to the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure more rational]] Captain Esteridge then just another background character in the original film after blowing the audience members away with his actor's brief, but emotional ItsPersonal RevengeBeforeReason RabidCop performance and his LoopholeAbuse attempt to commit an act of vigilantism against Jim. Instead, he is cut off from the film's main plot after Nash's BigDamnHeroes moment to save Jim from being [[VigilanteExecution personally summarily executed]], is left stranded for him and his partner to report their escape and never heard of again. A total waste of Hancock's portrayer Henry Darrow's exceptional emotionally-driven acting, especially considering at the time his past role as the iconic Mexican hero Franchise/{{Zorro}} in the 1981 animated series ''WesternAnimation/{{The New Adventures of Zorro|1981}}'' (through voice acting) and in the short-lived series ''Zorro and Son'' in 1983.
* TooBleakStoppedCaring: An early version of the script included substantially more violence and {{Gorn}} than the finished product, prompting the studio to order rewrites so as to avoid this trope. Even so, some people (including Creator/RogerEbert) would argue that the completed film still suffers from it, as the high level of violence and suffering inflicted on the protagonists can be potentially off-putting to a good number of viewers.
* TheWoobie:
** Jim in the original.
** And in the remake as well along with Grace.

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