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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I'm gonna sit here... and you're gonna drive. | „ |
| ~ John Ryder refusing to leave Jim Halsey's car. |
John Ryder is the titular main antagonist of the 1986 road thriller The Hitcher. He is a mysterious drifter and a sadistic serial killer who slaughters anyone he hitchhikes with. After hitching a ride with Jim Halsey and failing to kill him, Ryder begins relentlessly stalking him at every turn.
In the 1986 film, he was portrayed by the late Rutger Hauer.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He is a sadistic serial killer who hitches rides with random strangers on a desert highway so he can murder them in gruesome ways. He describes how he once stabbed a victim in the eye and slashed another victim's throat, implying that he has taken lives before the events of the film begin.
- Moments before he hitched a ride with Jim Halsey, John Ryder killed another man by dismembering and decapitating him alive, evident by a stranded vehicle that had previously drove past Jim. He confesses his murder to frighten Jim before pulling a knife on him, promising Jim the exact same fate.
- He begins relentlessly stalking Jim after his attempt on Jim's life is foiled. It is implied that John intends to push Jim into killing him by tormenting Jim, making attempts on his life, killing more people Jim happens to cross paths with and then framing him for his own killing spree by planting his bloodied knife in Jim's jacket pocket and letting the police catch him.
- John Ryder proves his confession to being a vicious killer by hitching a ride with a family of four and brutally killing them, including the two children he was playing with. Jim vomits at the sight of the bloody aftermath.
- He later hitches a ride with two more people in a pickup truck, where it is strongly indicated that he murdered them afterwards. He is seen driving the same pickup truck for a good portion of the film and the two owners of the truck are never seen again. Their fates are confirmed when John hides a severed finger in Jim's fries to just to mess with him.
- After framing Jim, John goes on a cop killing spree to keep Jim out of jail solely to torment and incriminate him further. He murders the three police officers who arrested Jim; guns down two cops when Jim tries to turn himself in; kills four more cops chasing after Jim and his love interest Nash; and, while being transferred to prison in a bus, blasts away three guards with a shotgun.
- He kidnaps Nash and ties her between a semitruck and a trailer, threatening to rip her in half when the police try to close in on him. John does this as a means to provoke Jim into shooting him, in spite of the fact that should he die, his foot will be taken off the truck's clutch and would cause Nash to die horribly. When Jim hesitates at this realization, John Ryder proceeds to tear Nash apart right in front of Jim anyway.
- There is what appears to be a flicker of pity on John's face when he frightens Jim at a café and when Jim tries to get an explanation for why John is doing what he does, but it quickly vanishes and he continues leaving bodies behind and torturing Jim without any signs of true regret for his actions.
- Despite being suicidal, John is never given a justifiable or sympathetic excuse for anything that he does throughout the film (considering his past is intentionally kept a mystery), nor are his suicidal tendencies treated as a genuine mental illness. He is simply content with dragging as many lives down with him as he can and ruining Jim's life so he could corrupt him into becoming the man to kill him after he thwarted John's initial attempt on his life. John even flashes a gleeful smile moments before Jim kills him with a shotgun.
External Links[]
- John Ryder on the Villains Wiki.
