28
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 50PremierePremiereThe Hitcher's main problem is that many of the title character's dirty deeds are done off-camera. Instead of seeing Ryder trap his victims before he kills them, the audience is treated to plenty of butchered corpses that seem to magically appear after Ryder leaves a room.
- 50New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithThe Hitcher is the Jessica Simpson of psycho killer flicks - cheerfully in touch with its own brainlessness.
- 42The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinSomehow, music-video veteran David Meyers fails to hurtle this project into the pantheon of great horror movies.
- 38TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghBean carves out his own modest variations on the theme of John Ryder-on-the-storm, but Bush and Knighton are so blandly forgettable that it's hard to believe that they're the protagonists and not Victims 1 and 2.
- 30L.A. WeeklyL.A. WeeklyThat leaves little to fill 83 expendable minutes, which barely register as a movie even with snazzy KNB gore effects, critic-baiting clips from "The Birds," a splattery variation on the '86 "Hitcher's" most notorious scene, and some out-of-place Bruckheimerisms on loan from producer Michael Bay.
- The movie genuflects toward pop depth in a scene where Grace sprawls on a motel bed watching Alfred Hitchcock’s "Birds," another thriller about implacable, undefined evil, but there’s a difference between refusing to give viewers the answers and having nothing to say. For all its death-metal vigor, The Hitcher falls into the latter camp.
- 30Film ThreatPete Vonder HaarFilm ThreatPete Vonder HaarReviewing it is a wholly meaningless exercise, but I do it against my better judgment that anyone even seeks a second opinion before plopping down their hard-earned money for garbage like this.
- 25Boston GlobeTy BurrBoston GlobeTy BurrIf you boil off dialogue, performance, narrative logic and grind a movie down to the nub of genre, will there be any suspense left? The answer is yes, but only in a Pavlovian sense. You react to this dull shockathon like a wired lab rat who's seen it all before. And guess what? You have.
- 20The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckWhile the 1986 edition was no classic, it's light years better than this update, which naturally opened without being screened for those ultimate villains, the critics.
- 20VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibIn the absence of actors with the tremendous presence of Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, picture loses its raison d'etre. Yet, directed by video helmer Dave Meyers with a certain fastidious distance from its plentiful gore, picture is also insufficiently over-the-top or corny to incite gleeful audience feedback.