Directed by
Larry Cohen and based on a short story by David J. Schow. A bus carrying a small number of passengers breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They are soon visited by a trucker, Wheeler (
Michael Moriarty) and a hitchhiker, Walker (Warren Kole). Both are serial killers. When the passengers are reduced to only one left, Stacia (
Fairuza Balk), the hunt also becomes a feud between the two.
Tropes:
- Alone with the Psycho: Anyone who agrees to go alone with either Walker or Wheeler, or finds themself at their mercy.
- Black Dude Dies First: The black bus driver is the first person to be murdered by one of the killers.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the final scene, after finding herself prisoner of another serial killing couple, Stacia screams while looking at the camera.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Just after causing a road accident and getting rid of Walker and Wheeler, Stacia is picked up by two paramedics who are also serial killers themselves.
- Dwindling Party: Once the killers show up, all characters die one by one until only Stacia is left. For the time being.
- Evil Versus Evil: A serial killer versus another serial killer, perfectly fitting each other's MOs. This is exploited by the heroine at the end when she goads them to kill each other instead of her. Taken even further at the end, when they're both killed by a pair of killer ambulance drivers.
- Eviler than Thou: Wheeler looks down on Walker for being what he terms a "poacher", a killer who roams around in another's territory surreptitiously.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Near the end Wheeler relays Stacia and Walker the story in the form of a snake and a blonde woman. Walker already knows the punchline because he's heard the "scorpion and the frog" version. The point Wheeler makes is that he knows full well that he picked up another serial killer and expects him to show his true nature. The subversion is only that he's also a serial killer, so it'd be a scorpion helping another scorpion.
- Fate Worse than Death: Both Walker and Wheeler willingly leave Marie alive, but chained to a tree with barbed wire so she will die of prolongued exposure instead.
- Final Girl: Stacia. At the moment credits roll, at least.
- Flaying Alive: Walker ties one of his victims in a motel room and cuts off large parts of her skin until she dies.
- Hostile Hitchhiker: Wheeler is a truck driver who kills hitchers that he picks up, while Walker is a hitchhiker who kills people that pick him up.
- Hypocrite: Wheeler dislikes Walker for going after easy prey, when he does pretty much the same thing.
- Hypocritical Humor: Walker mentions that he hates pornography because it's "clinical" and there's no "romance" to it, right after he just graphically flayed and tortured a slutty goth girl.
- Impersonating an Officer: If any victim asks Wheeler too many questions or questions his credibility, he just shows them a sheriff deputy's ID to convince them that he's actually an off-duty officer.
- Improvised Weapon: Walker strangles a victim with a dead snake. Wheeler decapitates another with the door of the bus' suitcase compartment.
- Karmic Death: Both Walker and Wheeler become the victims of other serial killers.
- Kill Steal: The conflict between the two serial killers revolves around this, with both fighting over the prey they both have set their sights on.
- Mad Doctor: The ambulance crew are an unrelated pair of serial killers who drive around looking for wounded people whom they can take as prey.
- Meaningful Name: Walker walks the road looking prey to pick him up. Wheeler drives around in a truck, looking for prey to pick up.
- No Love for the Wicked: Walker abhors sex and kills a woman for flirting with him.
- Offing the Annoyance: Wheeler decapitates one of his victims because the guy was basically annoying him with his frenzied panic after he sees the leftovers of two of Walker's victims.
- Off with His Head!: Wheeler knocks one of the bus passengers out with the but of his gun and then decapitates the guy with a bus bagage compartment door. Walker, who was watching this on from a distance, is impressed with his creativity.
- Pain Mistaken for Sex: Trying to sleep in the next room, Stacia mistakes Walker torturing a woman tied to a bed for a couple banging the bedframe.
- Properly Paranoid: Marie's first thought about Walker and Wheeler is that they are serial killers. She's right. Ironically, both of them decide not to kill her... but leave her tied to a tree with barbed wire in the middle of nowhere instead.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Walker seems to have a thing for snakes as predators. He wears snake leather boots, strangles someone to death with a dead snake, and skins one of his victims to "shed her skin".
- Serial Killer: The drifter and the truck driver. And the ambulance crew.
- Sex Signals Death: A rocker and his girlfriend unknowingly pick up Walker from the road. The girlfriend flashes her panties to Walker, pissing off the boyfriend. Walker kills them both, but the girl specifically for being skanky (and he tortures her whereas the boyfriend got a quick death).
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Walker and Wheeler both look fairly inconspicuous as a young drifter and a middle-aged trucker, respectively. Walker discusses the trope proper:
Walker: Your genuinely dangerous individuals — they almost never look crazy. They don't have any weird tattoos, they don't have any weird stitches on their face, funny-shaped heads. They are NOT predictable.
- This Is the Part Where...: Walker is a pop-cultured serial killer. When he chases down one of his victims through the woods, he notes that she must know how this scenario ends if she's seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — both versions.
- Villain Cred: Two rival serial killers called Walker and Wheeler pick off the passengers of a bus crew that they come across in the northwest. They both despise each other for their respective kill steals and treading on the other's "territory", but are also impressed by the other's ingenuity and brutality. Walker in particular prizes Wheeler on decapitating one of his victims with a baggage compartment door.
