A young man transporting a car to another state is stalked along the road by a cunning and relentless serial killer who eventually frames the driver for a string of murders. Chased by police and shadowed by the killer, the driver's only help comes from a truck stop waitress.
Written by
Keith Loh
Plot Synopsis:
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Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), a young man delivering a car from Chicago to San Diego, spots a man hitchhiking and gives him a ride. The man, giving his name as John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), is a brooding, soft spoken man; when Jim passes a stranded car, however, Ryder's personality suddenly shifts. Ryder calmly states that the reason the car is stranded is because he murdered and mutilated the driver, and he intends to do the same to Jim. Ryder produces a switchblade knife and taunts Jim for several moments, before Jim realizes Ryder never put on his seat belt and that the passenger door isn't fully closed and knocks him out of the car.

Relieved, Jim continues on his journey, until a station wagon carrying a family on vacation passes, and Jim is horrified to see that Ryder has hitched a ride with them. Jim attempts to signal the family, but ends up nearly totaling his car; when he finally catches up to the station wagon, Jim discovers the entire family has been horribly mutilated by Ryder.

The movie shifts into an elongated chase sequence, which finds Jim trying to flee Ryder both on foot and in his car, to no avail; wherever Jim runs, Ryder finds him: It seems that Ryder, impressed with Jim's show of bravery by knocking him out of the car, has decided that Jim is the man who is finally going to put his killing spree to an end.

Jim then finds Ryder at an abandoned gas station. Ryder knocks down the gas pumps with a pickup truck and then lights a match. Both cars drive off and the gas station explodes. Jim retreats to a roadside diner, where he meets a pretty young waitress named Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and calls the police. She then serves him a cheeseburger and french fries. He eats these in solitude, until discovering that one of the fries is a severed finger. Realizing that Ryder is nearby, Jim attempts to flee, but is stopped by the police who promptly place him under arrest, mistakenly thinking that he might be responsible for the dead bodies found by the side of the road. At some point, Ryder pick-pocketed Jim, and placed his wallet at the scene of a murder. Jim is taken to a local jail, booked, and placed in a cell.

Sometime later in the day, Jim awakens from a nap to find the police station eerily quiet and his cell door open. Jim slips out to discover the bodies of three murdered policemen. Jim panics, steals a gun and runs from the station house as five police cars arrive.

Jim comes to a pay phone and sees two cops pull up. Knowing that Ryder has framed him, Jim points his gun at them and takes the troopers hostage, forcing them to drive him away from the scene. He forces the police officers to get him in touch with the captain, and Jim pleads his case. The captain suspects that Jim is telling the truth, and asks Jim to come meet him. Jim agrees, but just then, Ryder pulls up alongside the car, kills the cops with a revolver, shoots out the radio, and drives away.

Jim wanders across the desert to a diner and is confronted by Ryder. When Jim asks Ryder why he's pursuing him, Ryder only replies that Jim should know, then calmly reaches across the table and sticks two pennies over Jim's eyes (an ancient funeral ritual performed on corpses, so that their souls could pay Charon to carry them across Styx to the land of the dead). Jim is left terrified and alone with the pennies on his eyes - and a handful of bullets that Ryder left him for his gun. Jim attempted to shoot Ryder, but only to find that his gun has no bullets.

Jim leaves the diner and sneaks onto a Greyhound bus. He then sees that Nash is on the Greyhound. He pulls Nash into the bus's bathroom and convinces her that he's innocent.

Before the two can act, the police stop the bus and attempt to arrest Jim. But the hot-tempered Trooper Hancock (Henry Darrow) means to kill Jim because one of the policemen murdered by Ryder was his brother. Nash takes Jim's gun and pulls it on the two officers, and she and Jim flee in a police car. They're chased by two more police cars and Jim is forced to blow out their tires and cause them to collide with one another. Then a police chopper arrives and starts taking pot shots at Jim. Then Ryder pulls up, shoots the chopper down and drives away.

The pair hide out in a roadside motel, but while Jim is taking a shower, Ryder breaks into the room and kidnaps Nash, dragging her to a truck stop parking lot where he ties her between a Mack truck and its trailer, threatening to tear her in half if he doesn't speak to Jim. The police, now convinced of Jim's innocence, enlist him to try to negotiate with Ryder. In the cab of the truck, Ryder demands that Jim shoot him. Jim refuses, saying that if he were to shoot Ryder, Ryder's foot will slip from the clutch, killing Nash anyway. Furious, Ryder insults Jim and then shifts both the clutch and the accelerator - the truck screams forward, killing Nash. Police swarm the truck and arrest both Ryder and Jim.

At the station, the authorities are bewildered, unable to find any information on Ryder: He has no social security number, no driver's license, no indication that he has ever existed. All that the police can determine is that Ryder is a serial/spree killer and a threat which the local department cannot handle, and arrange to have him transported for holding at a state prison. Before Ryder is placed into a transport van, the police allow Jim to see him in the interrogation room. Ryder seems pleased to see Jim and touches his hand. Jim responds by spitting in Ryder's face.

The police cover Ryder in shackles and chains and place him in the back of a prison bus, escorted by multiple officers. As Jim is loaded into a police car to be taken to his family, he finally decides to murder Ryder. Jim steals Captain Esteridge's gun and hijacks the squad car, chasing the prison bus. As Jim pulls up on it, the back doors fly open, to reveal the entire police escort murdered and a bloody, still partially chained Ryder clutching a shotgun. As the van veers out of control, Ryder leaps off the back of the van and crashes through the window of the police car Jim is driving. Jim slams on the brakes, throwing Ryder off; the sudden braking, though, causes the police car to stall, and a bloody Ryder lifts himself from the highway, picks up his shotgun, and begins firing it into the police car.

Jim avoids the damage of the blasts by lying sideways, repeatedly turning the ignition key and pumping the gas pedal in an effort to restart the car; he eventually restarts the car, and slams it into Ryder, throwing him off the side of the highway. Jim slips out of the car, picks up the still-loaded shotgun, and inspects Ryder's corpse. Satisfied that Ryder is dead, he turns around and heads back to the police car when he hears movement behind him. As he stops, Jim is not surprised that Ryder is alive and standing up. Ryder smiles at Jim and throws his shackles down at Jim's feet. Jim responds by emptying the remaining shotgun shells into Ryder's body, at last killing him, and leaving Jim alone in the desert to light up a cigarette and watch the sun set over the horizon.

C. Thomas Howell admitted that he was actually afraid of Rutger Hauer on and off the set because of the actor's general intensity.
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In Rutger Hauer's book "All Those Moments," Hauer discusses how producer Ed Feldman settled on Sam Elliott for the role of John Ryder. Hauer states that "Apparently, Elliott was so scary when he came in to audition that Edward S. Feldman was afraid to go out to his car afterward." Sam Elliott had a scheduling conflict and had to back out the role.
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Rutger Hauer did a lot of the stunt driving throughout the movie which amazed the film crew and even the real stunt drivers.
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While performing the last bit of the windshield stunt Rutger Hauer knocked out one of his teeth with the shotgun he held in his hands.
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The coach stops at "Roy's Motel and Diner" which is a famous landmark on the old Route 66, now interstate 40. It can be found at Amboy, California in the Mojave desert. It is featured in many films and documentaries.
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In early drafts of the script, John Ryder had been described as skeletal in nature and so actors like David Bowie, Sting, Sam Shepard, Harry Dean Stanton, and Terence Stamp were mentioned.
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Eric Red, (writer), said that the film was inspired by The Doors song, "Riders on the Storm".
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Jennifer Jason Leigh agreed to do the film because she wanted to work with Rutger Hauer again (they co-starred in Flesh+Blood (1985)) and loved the character of Nash because "there was a real person there".
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For the role of Jim Halsey, the producers mentioned Matthew Modine, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.
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Director Christopher Nolan has listed this as one of his favorite films.
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On the jail wall you can read "Mort aux matons!" (probably written by a previous prisoner), translated to "Death to the jail guards!" in French.
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Fox ultimately rejected the project over the budget and saw it as a "straight-out horror movie". David Madden also admitted that he would have "argued to soften the movie. There were some people at the studio who thought it was pretty gross". Ed Feldman and Charles Meeker optioned the film themselves, paying Eric Red $25,000. Major studios like Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. passed on it, as did smaller ones like Orion Pictures and New World Pictures. Many executives liked the script but balked at the girl being ripped apart scene. At least two studios were willing to consider making it but only if Robert Harmon was replaced. However, the film's producers had faith in their director and stuck by Harmon.
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Sam Elliott and Terence Stamp were offered the role of John Ryder.
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George W. Bush served on the board of the company that made this film.
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Entertainment Weekly ranked this as the 19th scariest movie of all time.
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At one point, Eric Red wanted John Ryder to have an electronic voicebox.
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This is one of the few films that Roger Ebert gave zero stars to. When he and Gene Siskel denounced the movie for its violence on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), Carson asked them if they were opposed to censorship, and Ebert replied, "Of course! The film should be made, it should be shown, and it should not be attended by anybody."
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Fox was to have distributed the film before TriStar Pictures took over.
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The truck at the end of the film is a Dodge Ramcharger.
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Eric Red: Screenwriter can be seen in a cameo role toward the end of the film as a sheriff's deputy escorting the prisoner to the transfer bus.
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The original script was long enough to make a three-hour film. Scenes that were never filmed include: Ryder slaughtering an entire family, an eyeball appearing in a hamburger (this was replaced in a finger in a plate of French fries), a graphic sex scene between 'Gal' Galveston (the girl before Nash) and Jim, and a character being decapitated. The film underwent several rewrites which removed the gorier moments.
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One of the film's producers said that the film's commercial failure was because of a lack of violence and that Nash's death should have been shown: "There's other gore in the movie, other killings, but this is the main one. It's the motivation for the hero. You can't show all the killings we showed and then not show the main one. It's cheating the audience". Rutger Hauer said critics misunderstood the film. According to him, it is an allegory in which Ryder represents evil.
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In an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman (1982), Rutger Hauer stated that the film originally ended with Jim Halsey shooting John Ryder as Ryder lay prone on the highway. However, to avoid an X rating, the filmmakers shot the ending that was ultimately used (with Ryder getting to his feet, showing he is still a threat, and giving Jim at least partial justification for shooting him).
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Executives tried to have the death of Nash softened and toned down. The studio even suggested softening her death by having a funeral. The filmmakers refused to back down and Silver Screen executives finally relented at the last minute.
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Despite he has no identifying documents, John Ryder is seen having two wedding rings on one finger. They may be trophies from a murdered couple and the reason why he cut the finger he puts in Jim's French fries.
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Jim drives a 1977 Cadillac seville
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The shotgun that Ryder takes from the cops at the climax of the film is a SPAS-12 automatic tactical combat shotgun.
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The ending scene of Ryder going through windshield from the bus was recreated in the Demi Lovato music video, "Confident".
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After one of the deputies fires a warning shot at Jim Halsey just outside the diner, you can hear the shotgun pumping, but the deputy with the shotgun takes no such action.
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When State Trooper Ed and Captain Esteridge escort Jim to the Semi, the police are talking nervously without stopping. However you can hear the English "Hold-your-fire" in almost audio tracks of almost every language, such as French, German, Italian, Spanish. This is because the maker forgot to treat it as audio rather than environment noise.
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When the cops are loading John (Rutger Hauer) into the prison bus it appears to be either early in the morning or late at night based on the position of the sun and the low light in the sky. At the same time C. Thomas Howell and the Captain are driving away and the sky is very bright and sunny. This is interspersed with scenes of John inside the prison bus where you can see the sky is dimly lit. When C. Thomas Howell catches the prison bus it is very bright again. After the dramatic conclusion we see a silhouette of C. Thomas Howell at what appears to be dusk. It was all over the place.
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When Halsey is seen running through gasoline , he is wearing blue Nikes with white stripes. A later glimpse seems to show an all white pair.
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The car that gets hit by the bus loses its bumper, but the bumper can be seen in a subsequent shot.
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When the dog is licking the dead officer, his mouth is closed. In the next shot, his mouth is open.
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After 2 Ford LTD Sheriff cars are destroyed, 3 State units join the pursuit. At first, all 3 state units are Chrysler M-Bodies cars. However when the chopper is destroyed, the first State unit which flips becomes a Ford.
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During the shotgun chase, one deputy shoots the left tail-light. However when the deputy is aiming, the left tail-light is already broken.
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A bus changes from a two rear axles to one.
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In the "gun under the table" scene, the plant in the right corner behind Jim's head is knocked over. In the next scene it is sitting upright.
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When two police cars try to shoot out tires, not only can you see the ram holes in the bottom of the cars, just after that you can see a car battery and large air-tank fly out of a trunk. The air-tank is the power for the ram that flips the car. And that cars battery should have been in the front, not the trunk.
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When Jim enters the abandoned garage, birds fly in front of the camera for dramatic effect. Though the hole in the floor seems to be intentional, the person visible pushing the birds out from said hole was probably not.
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The guards in the prison transfer bus carry guns which they then lay aside so they can start playing with cards during the ride. Guards are forbidden to carry guns in a situation with the slightest possibility of prisoners grabbing the weapons, and no competent guard on such a dire job would dare to take his attention off prisoners to engage in frivolities such as card-playing on duty.
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In the scene where John kidnaps Nash from the motel room, Jim is in the bathroom tying his shoes having just gotten a shower, when he hears the TV come one, which is to mask the noise of Nash being kidnapped. In the short time he calls her name three times, then runs out, John has been able to drag her to a truck, set her down, disconnect the trailer, pull the truck up a bit, and tie her to it, and the police are already showing up. There wouldn't have been anywhere near enough time to do all of that.
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Jim picks up a dead cop's empty revolver. When he learns to reload, they're no shells in the gun. The gun is a revolver, and does not eject it's shell casings when fired. Obviously John had emptied it and left if for Jim to find, as evidenced by the scene at Roy's cafe, where he asks Jim if he had checked the gun, then leaves him the ammo.
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When Jim and Nash are in the police car with the chopper flying around them in several scenes they are supposed to be driving 55 MPH, but in one shot they are just crawling.
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At the end, Halsey brakes and Ryder is thrown out of the windshield. We see that he lands a few meters away. He gets up and goes for his shotgun which lies 3 or 4 meters away from him. He then starts approaching the car while shooting (in fact he takes at least 8 steps towards it), but the distance between him and the car is about the same or even bigger, as the distance between the car and the spot where he picked up the shotgun.
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At the the end when John Ryder jumps out of the back of the bus and flies through the windshield of the Dodge Ramcharger, the windshield shatters like regular glass, not safety glass.
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