History Sandbox / HarmfulToHitchhikers

!!Harmful to Hitchhikers:

'''HarmfulToHitchhikers''' is the InvertedTrope, in which ''the driver'' is the homicidal maniac that ''the hitchhiker'' needs to beware of. This overlaps with BadSamaritan. If they're ''really'' unsubtle about it, they might even be driving around in a CreepyStalkerVan.

!!Hostile Hitchhiker:

[[folder:Advertising]]
* Played for laughs in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5uxs4wQAhI a Bud Light commercial]], where a guy driving through the woods in the middle of the night decides to pick up a shifty-looking hitchhiker simply because he has Bud Light -- even though, as his passenger points out, "He has an axe!" The hitcher [[BlatantLies claims that the axe is a bottle opener]], and the driver promptly invites him in. He later picks up an even shadier hitcher because he has a six-pack of Bud Light and the first hitcher objects.
-->'''Driver:''' Look. He has Bud Light.\\
'''Hitcher:''' And a ''chainsaw''!
* One Advertising/MessinWithSasquatch commercial shows two guys in a truck pulling the driveaway prank on Sasquatch, who responds by ripping the passenger out through the windshield and forcing the driver to give him a ride.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* One issue of ''Franchise/GIJoe: Special Missions'' has an operation go seriously bad with Outback being the only one to escape. At one point, he buys a truck from a gypsy and tries to drive to a friendly country. He picks up a hitchhiker because he figures the authorities are looking for just him and a second person in the vehicle might throw them off. The hitchhiker then tries to hijack the truck and rob him. This quickly turns into MuggingTheMonster due to Outback being a highly trained soldier who then kills the hitchhiker and crashes the truck.

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has two women in a car looking at a a one-eyed man with a HookHand and a sign that says "Anywhere". The caption is [[TooDumbToLive "Come on, Cynthia, where's your sense of adventure?"]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventuresHowISpentMyVacation'' has Mr. Hitcher, a [[AxCrazy chainsaw-wielding]] psychotic killer with a strange aversion to pork and duck. When Hamton's Family, who are on their way to [[SouvenirLand HappyWorldLand]], pick him up, [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter they don't see him as a psychotic killer]]. Plucky, who is going to [=HappyWorldLand=] with them, is the only one who does, as he listened to a radio broadcast describing Mr. Hitcher as an escaped convict. Even worse, before he could get the important number to call the authorities, Hamton's Mom shut off the radio, saying there was too much sensationalism in the media. After narrowly avoiding getting sliced by Mr. Hitcher's chainsaw, it is later revealed that Hamton gave Mr. Hitcher Plucky's address, rather than his own, and at the end of the movie, Mr. Hitcher is seen chasing and trying to attack Plucky after Hamton shows him to the class.
-->'''Plucky:''' ''(To the audience)'' SOMEONE CALL THE COPS!

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TheHitcher'' (1986) is about a driver who is stalked and manipulated by a hitchhiking spree killer after foiling the man's direct attempt on his life. Screenwriter Eric Red said the story was inspired by Music/TheDoors' song "Riders on the Storm." Was remade in 2007.
* ''Film/{{Detour}}'' uses a variant: the driver dies accidentally, and the rider (who is the protagonist) seizes the opportunity to steal his identity. Later, [[spoiler:he picks up a hitcher of his own -- who figures out what happened and blackmails him over it.]]
* Downplayed in ''Film/ThelmaAndLouise'', in which an otherwise friendly hitchhiker ends up stealing all their money.
* The 1953 film ''Film/TheHitchHiker'' is about a hitchhiking robber/murderer in the southwestern U.S. who, after a RunForTheBorder, gets picked up by two vacationing Americans. He forces them to transport him south through Baja California, intending to kill them when he reaches his planned destination.
* The AntiHero protagonist Nomi Malone from ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'' thumbs a ride to Las Vegas from a man in a pick-up truck. En route, the man suggests sex-for-mileage; Nomi and her switchblade vehemently disagree. BookEnds with the closing scene, where Nomi thumbs a ride to Los Angeles with the exact same man and pick-up truck. She shrieks, "You stole my luggage!" and resumes slashing at him while he's driving.
* There is a hitchhiking SerialKiller on the loose in the comedy ''Film/TheresSomethingAboutMary''. The cops find the body he was carrying and peg the main character as a guy who kills hitchhikers, starting a hilarious MistakenConfession.
* ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'': A hitchhiker travels with the group for a bit and start talking about his family who worked at the old slaughterhouse. He borrows Franklin's pocket-knife and cuts himself, then takes a Polaroid picture of the others and demands money for it. When they refuse to pay, he burns the photo and slashes Franklin's arm with a straight razor. The group forces him out of the van and drive on. It then gets worse when, later in the film, we find out the hitchhiker is Leatherface’s younger brother Nubbins, and he decides to exact some payback on Sally with aid from both Leatherface and the family’s patriarch Drayton.
* ''Film/DumbAndDumber'': Mental (one of the hitmen that are pursuing Harry and Lloyd) pretends to have car trouble and hitches a ride with them in order to find out that they know about the BriefcaseFullOfMoney MacGuffin that they unknowingly carry and to check out if the MistakenForBadass beliefs that he and his employers have are actually well-founded. He ''nearly'' becomes a straight use of this trope when he almost pulls a gun on them because they are annoying him so much (but their picking up some Mexican immigrants prevents him from doing so) [[ZigZaggedTrope and then it (accidentally) becomes the inverted version]] when Harry and Lloyd pull a prank that makes his ulcer act up and they give him some pills he had on his pocket, not knowing that it was some rat poison that he was planning to sneak into ''their'' food.
* In ''Film/TheHitchhiker'' (Creator/TheAsylum's {{Mockbuster}} of the 2007 remake of ''Film/TheHitcher''), the title character befriends four road-tripping party girls who pick him up, then imprisons them in a hotel room and tortures them.
* In ''Film/MacheteKills'', the shape-shifting assassin El Chameleon, in the form of Music/LadyGaga, wanders the desert and acts sexy to get a trucker to stop. As soon as she gets in, she shoots him, boots the body out, and drives off.
* In the 1991 version of ''Film/AKissBeforeDying'', a character is seen hitchhiking. When he's next seen on-screen, he's using the [[DeadPersonImpersonation name and backstory]] of the driver who picked him up. Given that we've already seen this guy murder his pregnant girlfriend, it's obvious that he's done away with the driver too.
* ''Film/TheEnforcer'' opens with an attractive blonde in Daisy Dukes hitchhiking by the side of the road, but when an young man in an expensive car stops she bluntly tells him to buzz off. Her actual target is the two gas company employees coming out of the GreasySpoon across the road; [[IHaveBoobsYouMustObey she gets them to give her a lift to her isolated house]] where her partner-in-crime murders them so [[MuggedForDisguise he can use their van and uniforms]] for his EvilPlan.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In S.E. Hinton's ''Tex'' the title character saves his older brother's life when a hitchhiker pulls a gun on them.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's story "The Deadlier Weapon", a hitchhiker pulls a knife on the driver who picked him up. The driver starts acting like he intends to [[TakingYouWithMe kill them both]] by deliberately crashing the car, ramping up the psychological pressure by [[DriverFacesPassenger looking at the hitchhiker instead of the road]] until the hitchhiker gives up, drops the knife out the window, and allows himself to be dropped off in the median of a busy highway where he is trapped until the cops come for him.
* Creator/StephenKing
** Played with in the short story ''Mute'', where a guy picks up a supposedly deaf-mute hitchhiker, who does nothing aside from stealing his St. Christopher medallion and evening leaves a note thanking him for the ride. However, the guy vented to the hitchhiker (who he believed to be asleep) about his wife cheating on him and embezzling from him as well, leaving him in debt, and soon after his wife and her lover are found beaten to death in their motel room.
** Played straight in "[[Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes Chattery Teeth]]", when a salesman, against his better judgment, picks up a hitchhiker who promptly tries to rob him. This does not go as planned.
* ''Literature/TheExecutioner''. In "Brothers in Blood", Mack Bolan stops to pick up a couple of men whose car has supposedly broken down in the desert. They turn out to be a professional hit team sent to kill him. Bolan feels bad when he has to turn down a genuine hitchhiker later on, because he's worried about the same thing happening again.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/Adam12'':
** The 1970 episode "Cigarettes, Cars and Wild, Wild Women": A trio of young, attractive girls hitch rides from unsuspecting young men, convince them to take them to a nearby gas station to buy cigarettes ... and as he goes inside to make the purchase, she steals the car, which they then take to a chop shop where the car is disassembled for parts to be sold on the black market. The episode in question starred a post-''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'' Tony Dow, who bemoans that he had just purchased the car less than an hour earlier and that it had "just seven lousy miles on it (the odometer)." In the end, Reed and Malloy witness a car theft, track one of the girls to the chop shop and conduct a raid. As they arrest the girls and the chop-shop owner and mechanics, one of the girls angrily snaps at Malloy, "You're treating me as a common criminal," to which Malloy responds that she indeed is a common criminal (due to being involved in grand theft auto).
** In the episode "Log 66: Vandals," two hitchhikers try to mug the girl who picked them up. When she resists, they kill her and [[PunkInTheTrunk hide the body in the trunk]].
** "Day Watch," from 1971, sees a super-white nova hot woman hitch rides from middle-aged men, then threatens to report them to the police for making lewd comments, coming on to her, etc. if they don't give her all the money in their possession now (usually, $25-50, which was a big amount to have in one's wallet in the early 1970s). Eventually, one of the men who picks her up was smart enough to tape record their conversation (unknown to her), and it puts a quick end to her scheme. (Reed and Malloy remark she had made more than $250 in the past week, a nice sum for 50-plus years ago.)
* ''Series/{{CHiPs}}'' once had a trio of {{Valley girl}}s who would hitch rides from strangers, hold them hostage with a water pistol, and rob them. Their crime spree ends when they try this on someone who recognizes the water pistol for what it is and threatens to commit sexual assault on them. Luckily, the officers intervene before anything happens.
* One episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' ("Safe Haven") features a teenage sociopath called Jeremy, who is hitchhiking his way back to his home (after his mother dumped him on another state exploiting the titular child protection law, knowing pretty well that he's a monster and deciding to let the government deal with him) and [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon exploiting his innocent looks]] to be allowed to spend the night on the houses of the people who pick him up... where he goes on to annihilate them and their entire families.
* ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'': The Hitcher is one of the series’ only recurring villains. His first appearance is in the episode "Hitcher" when he seemingly teleports into the van after Howard refuses to pick him up from the side of the road while driving to the animal offender zoo. Howard later becomes trapped in The Hitcher’s box with Vince, where The Hitcher reveals he owns the animal offender zoo, and his plan to cut them up and feed them to the animals.
* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Weekend in the Country", a criminal uses a female hostage to thumb down a lift for him. Unfortunately for him the car he chooses is driven by George Cowley, and a female [=CI5=] agent [[MuggingTheMonster puts a bullet in the crim's shoulder instead]].
* ''Series/SixFeetUnder'' had a very controversial episode, "That's My Dog", that almost approached TorturePorn, in which David Fisher was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and almost murdered by a psycho hitch-hiker.
* ''{{Series/Thunderbirds}}'': In the episode ''Thirty Minutes After Noon'', a man named Thomas Prescott picks up a Hitchhiker, who unfortunately for him turns out to be a member of the infamous Erdmann Gang. The crook straps a bomb bracelet to Prescott's wrist in order to force him to carry out a terrorist attack for them.
* Several ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'' segments involved people picking up hitchhikers with deadly results. At least two drivers were themselves murdered, while another managed to fend off the guy, who somehow found his way to the man's house and kill his mother. An episode of ''Series/ForensicFiles'' covered the same case and revealed that the hitchhiker picked the man's house at random. It was just a horrible coincidence that the mother was murdered by the same man who had attacked her son earlier.
* Downplayed in one episode of ''Series/{{Community}}''. Britta and Shirley are driving and pick up a hitchhiker after arguing about whether it's too dangerous, but their Good Samaritan impulses prevail. He immediately proves to be insufferably offensive, going on at length about both his love of Jesus (which grates on Britta) and his love of marijuana (which grates on Shirley). Once he demonstrates himself to also be incredibly racist, they both kick him out.
* A variant in ''Series/TwinPeaks The Return'' with the woodsmen. They are evil, {{Brown Note Being}}s that look like men covered in dirt or grease that spawn form an interdimensional gas station. They swarm people driving in cars late at night and kill them.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': While driving back from Las Vegas, Joey decides to pick up a hitchhiker while Phoebe's asleep so he can take a nap too. Phoebe is ''furious'' when she wakes up and yells at Joey that the guy could have been dangerous. The hitchhiker [[SubvertedTrope actually turns out to be a nice guy]], and by the time they drop him off Phoebe's given him her phone number.
-->'''Phoebe:''' How could you pick up a hitchhiker? He could be a rap-- (''holds her hand in front of the hitchhiker's face'') He could be a rapist or a killer or something!\\
'''Joey:''' Don't you think I asked him that before he got in?!

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/TheDoors' "Riders on the Storm" has a verse about this:
-->''There's a killer on the road,\\
His brain is squirming like a toad,\\
Take a long holiday;\\
Let your children play;\\
If you give this man a ride, sweet memory will die;\\
Killer on the road....''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/Road96'' has two instances when the player is driving a stolen car:
** The bumbling robbers Stan and Mitch force the player to drive for them at gunpoint and even debate killing the player, though the worst that will happen is being knocked unconscious and dumped on the roadside.
** Serial killer Jarod is picked up on a dark, stormy night. After unnerving the player enough that you ask him to get out, he pulls a gun and plays a "game" where you have to avoid angering him too much or he ''will'' kill you.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In the prologue of ''Webcomic/TeachMeToKill'' Q.Bee gets picked by an old creep fan of hers unaware of her secret, she's a psychopath serial killer. The creep ends up knocked out in the car and decapitated by Q.Bee in the woods.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/ThingsOfInterest'' [[https://qntm.org/screenplays suggests]] a RomanticComedy where a serial killer hitchhiker is picked up by a serial killer who kills hitchhikers, [[BlackComedy dark]] HilarityEnsues, and the two killers end falling in love.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', the crew goes on a team-building trip with an overly enthusiastic coordinator. He says that just to make a point he'll pick up a random hitchhiker to catch him on the first trust fall of the trip. He picks up a very bored-looking hitchhiker and starts to fall back...only for the hitchhiker's stomach to open up into a mouth and eat him. Subverted because [[spoiler:the hitchhiker turns out to have been placed there as part of the team-building exercise, and no one was actually eaten]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode, "[[Recap/SonicBoomS2E32PlanesTrainsAndDudeMobiles Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles]]", during Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles' road trip to their Dude-itude concert, Knuckles picks up the Bike Chain Bandit, figuring he needed company while he drove the Dude-Mobile and Sonic and Tails were sleeping. A radio broadcast describes the Bike Chain Bandit as a large, snaggle-toothed opossum wearing a trenchcoat, and carrying a duffle bag filled with bicycle chains. The Bike Chain Bandit attempts to choke Knuckles with a bicycle chain while he is still driving, but is kicked out of the Dude-Mobile by Sonic. Near the end of the episode, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles help a police officer who had earlier arrested them capture and arrest the Bike Chain Bandit.
[[/folder]]

* In [[http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/end-of-the-open-road-inside-story-of-how-hitchhiking-died an article]] about the decline in RealLife hitchhiking (caused largely by fear of this trope), Molly Osberg tells about a driver who, being in a bad headspace after a divorce, picked up two hitchhikers [[DeathSeeker in the]] ''[[DeathSeeker hope]]'' [[DeathSeeker that they'd kill him]]. Osberg concludes that, nowadays, "picking up a hitcher can be considered a lackadaisical attempt at suicide."
* The murder of [[http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Phillip_Fraser Phillip Fraser]].
[[/folder]]

!!Harmful to Hitchhikers:

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure'' subverts this. Early on in his journey, Pee Wee hitches a ride with Mickey, who is quickly established as an escaped convict. However, he never harms Pee Wee and even lets him drive. When Pee Wee crashes the car and almost kills them, he still doesn't kill him but instead forces him to find new transportation.
* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'':
** In ''Film/{{Friday the 13th|1980}}'', one of the first victims in [[Franchise/FridayThe13th the franchise]] is a hitchhiking Annie, who is murdered by an unseen [[spoiler:Mrs. Voorhees]] ''en route'' to Camp Crystal Lake.
** In ''Film/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter'', this trope is [[ZigZaggingTrope zigzagged]] by featuring another hitchhiker murdered by Jason Voorhees, who is not driving a vehicle but sneaks up on her from behind while she waits for a ride.
* The opening and closing scenes of ''Film/JoyRide2DeadAhead'' showcase that this is one of Rusty Nail's methods to obtain victims.
* In ''Film/TheNailGunMassacre'', a hitchhiker flips off a vehicle for speeding past him. Unfortunately, it's being driven by the killer -- who stops, waits for the hitchhiker to approach, and then fills him full of nails.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/RatRace'', as the FunnyForeigner accidentally ruins a transplant heart, and the courier hints that he plans on using the foreigner's heart as a replacement.
-->'''Enrico''': Oh, [[LookBehindYou look, a dreefter]], [[DisposableVagrant let's kill him]]! (''Wisely runs away'')
* In ''Film/RoadGames'', Smith (alias Jones) is a hedonistic serial killer who rapes, strangles, and dismembers young female hitchhikers.
* ''Film/WarlockTheArmageddon'': The warlock picks up a slutty woman on the road. Eventually he gets so annoyed with her that he scalps her before throwing her out of his vehicle.
* In ''Film/SweetHostage'', Doris Mae flags down escaped mental patient Leonard Hatch after her car breaks down. He offers to give her a ride into town, but instead abducts her to his secret cabin in the mountains.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In an early scene of ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'', the main characters threaten and terrorize (but don't, and may not really intend to, physically harm) a young male hitchhiker.
* ''Literature/MayasNotebook'': Maya runs away from the facility for troubled youth that she had been staying in. A truck driver offers her a ride to Las Vegas. [[spoiler: He ends up drugging her and raping her]]. Then he drops her off in the middle of the Strip, patting her on the head and claiming [[IncestSubtext she reminds him of his little daughter]].
* In Julie Orringer's short story "Stars of Motown Shining Bright," the main character -- on the road with someone who is trying to drag her into a scheme she doesn't like -- [[DefiedTrope decides]] ''[[DefiedTrope not]]'' [[DefiedTrope to get out and hitch a ride home]].
-->"She imagined herself standing beside the highway in her short white skirt. It seemed like an image from a slasher movie."
* Played for laughs with a creepypasta entitled "The Demon Within", in which the narrator picks up a teenage girl hitchhiking on the side of the road. After they continue on down the highway she falls asleep, and he starts describing the eponymous demon as a rising urge that he wouldn't be able to control indefinitely... which culminates in "the most monstrous fart I’d ever released."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/StrangeFrequency'': One episode/story ("My Generation") features both forms: Wheeler (a driver SerialKiller that kills hitchhikers) and Walker (a Hostile Hitchhiker played straight). They focus on music (Grunge Rock for Wheeler and old-school Rock and Roll for Walker -- if someone likes those genres, they are immediate targets), trying to kill each other and, when they wreck the car they are in, doing casual conversation on their killing methods as an old man that was passing by with his RV helps them fix the car... [[spoiler:and soon after going on the road and thinking of teaming up, the car's brakes malfunction and they crash fatally. Turns out that the old man is a ''third'' SerialKiller, one that has a modus operandi of sabotaging vehicles... if you don't like Big-Band music.]]
* ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' featured an episode, "Pick Me Up", where Wheeler is a truck driver who kills hitchers that he picks up, and Walker is a hitchhiker who kills people that pick him up. [[spoiler:The third serial killer in this scenario is a pair of ambulance drivers.]]
* A 1983 ''Creator/{{ABC}} Series/AfterschoolSpecial'' called "Andrea's Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy" was about a girl dealing with the aftermath of being raped while hitchhiking.
* An early ''Series/{{CHiPs}}'' episode has a pair of teenage girls hitchhike to get where they're going. This works well until the person who stops for them turns out to be a kidnapper. One girl abandons the other and Ponch and Jon come to the rescue.
* Betty spends most of the fifth season of ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' investigating the Lonely Highway where hitchhiking women are being murdered by mysogynistic truck-driving {{Serial Killer}}s. She even poses as a hitchhiker herself to capture them.
* Halfway through the miniseries ''The Deliberate Stranger'', Ted Bundy picks up a pretty girl hitchhiking. Given that by this point in the film, Bundy has been well established as a misogynistic SerialKiller, it's safe to say he has nefarious intentions.
* ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'' again. Two college kids entered a rest stop and called the police, having just learned that the guy they were riding with had stolen the truck he was driving. While he never explicitly threatened them, they were clearly fearful that he had done something to the truck's owner and refused to ride with him anymore. Given that the man had indeed murdered the truck's owner, their instincts probably saved their lives.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Like in real life, Music/{{Macabre}}'s "Edmund Kemper has a Horrible Temper" tells how the titular killer would pick up hitchhiking Co-Ed’s to abduct and murder them.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/RidesWithStrangers'' was created based on this trope; the player has to hitchhike their way to a meeting they are late for and must avoid being killed by the driver.
* A ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' player can do this while playing as Trevor. If he encounters someone lost in the wild, he can deliver them to the [[ImAHumanitarian Altruist]] cult to be eaten.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'':
** Episode One of Season 3 has Cinder driving around picking up people for "nefarious reasons" (and being pretty ObviouslyEvil about her intentions once she stops by them). Having already done so several times already, she picks up Jaune and Ren, who save themselves by means of Jaune singing the opening theme of ''WebAnimation/CampCamp'' until she can't take it.
--->'''Cinder:''' ''[brakes angrily]'' STOP! [[PityTheKidnapper Nothing nefarious is worth this!]] GetOut!!!
** A later skit has both sides of the trope appearing as two Grimm in a PaperThinDisguise, aiming to devour any driver that picks them up, get into Cinder's car. And she only realizes what they are once the duo indulges in an EvilLaugh.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/SevenSecondRiddles'': There's a riddle involving a hitchhiker that got murdered by a man who gave him a ride.
* ''Series/TheWeather'': "Hey Girl" involves a woman alone at a bridal shower being repeatedly called by her friends. Over the course of the story, her friend's party bus breaks down, and they're picked up by some seemingly kind men with a dog... only to be taken to a weird house and murdered.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]

See also BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts, the difference being that hitchhiking ghosts are generally supernatural and not always malevolent. Also see NotMyDriver, for when a driver that the passenger already trusts is replaced by a hostile person, or when the vehicle is an official taxi.