Passenger review: A creepy thrill ride that’ll put you off road trips
Has May become the new October in terms of horror releases? Horror fans are being well fed this month. Sandwiched between two newcomer feature directors (Obsession‘s Curry Barker and Backrooms’ Kane Parsons) is horror regular André Øvredal‘s latest offering, Passenger.
The film follows Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio), who give up their Brooklyn apartment and embark on van life, living out of their Sprinter van a la Nomadland. But they soon break the rules of the road – never drive at night and never stop. They pull over to help a fellow driver after a roadside crash and Maddie spots a creepy presence in the woods. By stopping, they become the next victims of the demonic Passenger.
Passenger has been widely criticised but I quite enjoyed it. It’s not perfect by any means and the script and acting could have done with some work, but I was scared at several different points. Sure, it’s over-reliant on jump scares (of mixed results), but I was more affected by the tension and the sense of foreboding whenever the Passenger is near. In addition to the scary cold open teased in the trailer, there is a fantastic sequence in a car park that truly creeped me out, while a sequence where they’re watching a movie on a projector in the woods is inventive and memorable.
I often find that the spooky antagonist gets less scary the more you see and the more you know. That’s definitely the case for Passenger. I was much more creeped out when it was an ominous, haunting figure in the distance or used quickly as a jump scare. He’s much less effective up close as he looks like a mix between Longlegs and The Grabber from The Black Phone. Also, the lore surrounding him feels rather basic and undercooked, although sometimes less is more when it comes to explaining the supernatural.
There are other places where Passenger falls down. The script is serviceable but the actors struggle to bring much life to it. They did just fine in the horror moments but I didn’t buy into the relationship and that was both a script and acting problem. Llobell isn’t the most natural or emotive. The newcomers are joined by Oscar winner Melissa Leo as Diana, a seasoned traveller with knowledge of Passenger, but she has minimal scenes, and her character is done dirty. It also feels much longer than its 94-minute runtime.
Passenger may have problems with its script and performances but it freaked me out so I still had a good time.
In cinemas now