3. The Hitcher (2007)
The second time they meet him, they give the hitchhiker a ride. During the ride, he becomes violent and attempts to kill the couple.
At the end of the movie, after lots of gore and fright, the hitchhiker is apprehended by police. However, without any tools or assistance, he manages to remove his handcuffs, kill the guards who are watching him, and then crash the van that was transporting him.
In the end, the female protagonist shoots the hitchhiker in the head and kills him, but she is only able to do so because he decides not to kill her with the gun that he has just used to kill one of the police officers with. Instead of shooting her, he kneels on the ground so that she can finish him off.
It seemed to most audience members that the only reason for the escape at the end was to boost the violence and action. After all, how is it that the hitchhiker was able to remove his handcuffs and take out an entire posse of cops? The ending goes on to strain credulity in the best 80s Kung fu fight-scene fashion when the killer decides to let the protagonist kill him.
It makes no sense that he would go to all of the trouble of magically removing his handcuffs and killing a half dozen police officers only to intentionally let a young girl shoot him in the head. When the movie finally winds down, you’ll be left wondering what the point of it all was.
