Anything can happen on the open road at night. One minute, you’re staring through a bug-speckled windshield following the hazy glow of your headlights and a handful of reflective guidelines into an infinite black expanse. The next, you’re standing ankle-deep in the mud beside a dead vehicle (or deer, if you’re on the east coast) just desperately trying to get a call through to your mechanic… and maybe mom.
Highway horror has long understood the uniquely modern terror of finding yourself stranded on a remote road, and that familiar fear ferociously powers André Øvredal‘s “Passenger.” That’s the latest supernatural thriller from the Norwegian director, who is perhaps still best known for older cult favorites like “Trollhunter” and “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” but directly improves upon the surreal fantasy sensibilities he attempted to sharpen in his more recent “The Last Voyage of the Demeter.”
The result lands somewhere between an imaginative creature feature, a brutal stalker nightmare, and a contemporary relationship drama as two nomadic lovers try to romanticize a life of perpetual instability. Their cursed tale isn’t emotionally profound enough to rank among Øvredal’s strongest work (even his mixed 2019 adaptation of “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” resonates deeper than this). But as far as theatrical horror experiences go, “Passenger” feels engineered to keep genre fans consistently tense, while relieving just enough pressure to keep you nervously laughing throughout.
Written by T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue, this ghostly journey opens with a simple setup as we meet two friends arguing over an impromptu bathroom break on a rural road. Øvredal withholds what kind of horror movie he’s making initially, letting an unexpected silence and creeping uncertainty do most of the lifting when one of the guys vanishes into the woods. But when he abruptly returns, in a genuinely shocking and supernatural fashion, it’s a monstrous race to the finish for everyone on board.
From there, “Passenger” reveals itself as a frantically anxious, stop-and-start chase centered on Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell). The charismatic boyfriend-girlfriend duo are attempting to embody the ambitious “van life” dream, but both carry the sort of vague psychic baggage that makes them seem like ideal horror protagonists, at least at first. Scipio and Llobell are likable together, and their characters are recognizable without sounding too scripted. The couple’s dynamic is affectionate but subtly agitated as their shared and notably squished existence gets less whimsical and more exhausting.
Tyler leaves a Saint Christopher pendant swinging from the rearview mirror, while Maddie’s Bob Ross bobblehead bounces happily on the dashboard. Those details help establish a believable habitat that looks more lived-in than many film environments. Still, somewhere in the movie’s second half, the starring pair downgrade from good-enough narrative foundation to awkwardly forced delivery system. “Passenger” repeatedly gestures toward more complicated themes of guilt, isolation, and aimlessness, harkening back to the sort of moral reckoning found in titles like 1997’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” even when no such hit-and-run tragedy explicitly occurs for Maddie and Tyler.
Ultimately, the characters function less like fully realized people and more like totally screwed commuters stuck on a demonic voyage they barely understand. Even cautioned by a fearful wanderer to stay off the roads at night (note to self: always take advice from the gal with a turquoise nose stud headed for Flagstaff), the two hapless victims stumble straight into an excruciating, otherworldly pursuit. The screenplay rarely goes hard enough to be conceptually haunting, but Øvredal and editor Martin Bernfeld compensate with exceptional timing on jump scares that are among the year’s best, so far.
That’s not because the vicious blitzes in “Passenger” are louder or more gruesome, but because they’re built around shrewdly orchestrated acts of misdirection that petulantly refuse to end. The filmmaker steers into the action just long enough to strike from somewhere unexpected, often weaponizing shadows, negative space, and transitions with wicked precision. Combined with striking cinematography from Christopher Young, as well as rich lighting and sound design, the final cut crosses the dexterity of 2016’s “Lights Out” with the relentlessly stylish hum of something like 2001’s “Joy Ride.”
“Passenger” also finds several original ways to incorporate contemporary driving technology into its core scare mechanics. Drawing from the same found-footage sensibilities that Øvredal explored in “Trollhunter,” and co-writer Donohue broke out with in “The Den,” Maddie and Tyler’s torment extends to their van’s exterior camera system — which becomes a fleeting but effective storytelling tool for an act. Backup monitors, distorted projections, and shifting roadside imagery create a disorienting 360-landscape that’s refreshingly creepy. Plus, one standout sequence set in a parking lot manages to squeeze in a nerve-shredding illusion that makes freeway merging look like a breeze.
Regrettably, the atmosphere proves scarier than the antagonist itself. While the pursuer’s ability to bend reality to its cruel whim remains, at the very least, alarming throughout, the actual being itself suffers from overexposure and an overly sleek digital rendering that doesn’t fully work. (Even being charitable, the thing resembles a severely dehydrated Alice Cooper stumbling out of Spirit Halloween.) In that regard, Øvredal would’ve been wiser to trust the horror already embedded within “Passenger” as a concept. Suffice to say, tightening seatbelts, weakening carjacks, and the claustrophobia of being trapped inside an automobile that no longer feels safe goes further faster.
Some of the movie’s most compelling maneuvers arrive as promising texture but fail to develop into a proper mythology. A recurring symbol, which weirdly looks exactly like the claw marks in “Jurassic Park,” leads Maddie toward the real-world history of American hobo codes, introducing a folkloric subculture “Passenger” lightly explores. The script similarly invokes Christian imagery, sometimes implying spiritual salvation that may or may not literally exist within the story. (Your mileage may vary there, but as a former Catholic, I’ll be leaving that for the Vatican to decide.)
At least Øvredal never loses the spirit of showmanship. Another memorable moment involves Tyler watching 1953’s “Roman Holiday” on a portable projector, before he’s suddenly forced to use Gregory Peck’s shimmering face as a flashlight. It’s an inspired choice that’s simultaneously eerie, silly, and beautiful. That said, less successful is the film’s brief but distractingly corporate use of the Paramount logo in the same scene. (Sure, it’s good branding, but be A LITTLE more subtle than that?!)
Of course, that’s a minor complaint for a truly startling flick that broadly understands the responsibility of the horror genre. “Passenger” may lack the interpersonal and mythological complexities required of a proper, obsession-worthy classic. But Øvredal is nevertheless skilled at trapping his audience inside a disorienting, semi-liminal space where anything can happen… and it probably will. Like the best late-night drives, it’s an outing without a meaningful destination that lets you have fun in total darkness.
Grade: B-
From Paramount Pictures, “Passenger” is in theaters on Friday, May 22.
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