The Hitcher is a 2007 American road horror thriller[3][4] film starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton.
The Hitcher was directed by Dave Meyers and produced by Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes.
College students, Jim Halsey (Zachary Knighton) and Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) are driving across New Mexico to meet their friends for spring break.
They are forced to continue on foot and eventually find the family's car on the side of the road; both the children and mother are already dead, with the father badly wounded.
John disappears so Grace leaves the motel to look for Jim and finds him chained at the wrists and ankles between a truck and a trailer.
The police arrive and tell her to drop her gun, as John drives forward and splits Jim in half, killing him.
The next morning, Lt. Esteridge tells Grace that the real John Ryder is missing and they do not know the true identity of the hitchhiker.
[10] Sean Bean and Sophia Bush were cast in January 2006; in June, Zachary Knighton joined the project.
[13] The Hitcher held a special screening on January 18, 2007, at the ArcLight's Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California; a majority of the cast and crew were in attendance.
The website's critics consensus reads: "Sean Bean tries giving motive and emotion to The Hitcher, but director Dave Meyers is more interested in cheap shocks and gratuitous gore and torture".
[21] New York Post called it "the Jessica Simpson of psycho killer flicks – cheerfully in touch with its own brainlessness".