Penny Rachel Miner, a young woman scarred by a childhood auto accident that killed her parents, accompanies her therapist Mimi Rogers Orianna Volkes on a road trip to a remote mountain community as part of her therapy to overcome her fear of cars. The journey is framed as a careful, hopeful step toward healing, with Orianna guiding Penny through the landscape and the slow process of confronting old traumas.
On the road, Orianna hits — but does not seriously injure — a hitchhiker Liz Davies whom she then offers a ride. The encounter feels unusually quiet; the hitchhiker remains almost motionless, aside from pointing out his destination with unsettling purpose. The moment undersells the danger to come, casting a pall over the already tense carriage of the car.
After dropping off the hitchhiker, the pair discover that he has punctured one of the tires, a small accident that begins to unravel the fragile sense of safety they’ve been trying to build. Orianna sets off to find reception for her cell phone, hoping to contact help or authorities, but she fails to return. Penny, left alone, ventures out to search for her mentor, only to stumble and fall, her ankle already injured from the prior incident.
When Penny wakes, she finds herself strapped into the same car, wedged between two trees in a claustrophobic enclosure. Beside her lies Orianna, whose death has been recorded on a video camera, a stark reminder of how quickly safety can collapse into danger. Penny tries to call for help, but the hitchhiker’s presence persists, taunting and tormenting her from the shadows of the vehicle and the surrounding trees.
The toll of terror intensifies as several nearby locals—people who might otherwise help—are killed by the hitchhiker when they intervene or attempt to assist Penny. The world outside seems to narrow to the confines of the car, the road, and the relentless threat that stalks Penny’s every move, turning a therapeutic exercise into a nightmare.
Penny endures hours more of torture; at one point, she attempts to crawl through a window, only for the hitchhiker to seize her right foot and sever one of her toes. As exhaustion begins to weigh her down, she drifts into sleep, only to wake with the hitchhiker now seated in the back, wearing Orianna’s clothes. The killer peels off the hood, revealing a demented female mental patient, and advances to strangle Penny while taunting her with the line, > Don’t forget your breathing exercises, Penny.
> Don’t forget your breathing exercises, Penny.
In a desperate, ferocious moment, Penny fights back, stabbing the attacker in the eye with a pencil and managing a frightening escape from the car. She stumbles, hampered by her injured foot, and the hitchhiker pursues with renewed menace. Just as the threat seems certain to close in, a pickup truck rumbles by and strikes the hitchhiker, breaking the immediate danger in a narrow, brutal moment.
The hitchhiker appears to lie motionless in the road, and the truck driver—panicked by what he has just witnessed—urges Penny to stay put and let him tend to the hitchhiker. Penny, still shaken but momentarily relieved, watches the scene unfold with a creeping sense of dread. She soon realizes, through a chilling sign of life from the supposed victim, that the threat may not be fully extinguished and that danger can linger even after the closest call.
