Road trips take extensive amounts of time and skill. Aside from the driving aspect, there’s a sense of danger when driving through unsettling, seemingly barren towns and areas of the rural United States. André Øvredal’s latest horror film takes the eeriest aspects of driving across the United States and puts a supernatural twist on them. Following a couple (Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobel) traveling across the country who witness an accident and are relentlessly pursued by a supernatural entity, Passenger seems like an intriguing concept on paper. Unfortunately, the execution of that concept can’t find the emotional gas it needs to succeed.
Passenger begins with a cold open that was seen in the initial theater-exclusive teaser for the film. The rules are simple: if you see something on the side of the road at night, don’t stop. The characters in this cold open are not the couple we follow for the majority of the film, but they cause the couple’s predicament that we see for the majority of the story. Maddie (Llobel) and Tyler (Scipio) are leaving the big city behind to become nomadic “van life” influencers, a timely way to get the couple on the road for the inciting event. These two and the characters from the cold open cross paths, running into a roadside accident that causes “The Passenger,” a dark entity that manipulates and murders those who stop for it, to latch onto Maddie and Tyler.
Scipio and Llobel do their best attempt at a young couple in over their head in more ways than one, but their chemistry is simply not believable enough to root for them. Their performances are unwaveringly lackluster, and the script doesn’t do them any favors. The most interesting part of the pair’s arc is Maddie’s hesitation to travel the country back and forth her entire life, something Tyler disagrees with. Llobel tries her best to sell this, having realistic concerns about the sustainability of the lifestyle she’s thrown herself into. This conflict is quickly left in the rear-view mirror in favor of the supernatural element, The Passenger himself, tormenting Maddie (and later Tyler as well) with loud noises and mediocre CGI.
A supernatural slasher like this doesn’t necessarily need in-depth character explorations or extensive time with the characters to be successful, but Passenger offers almost no significant character exposition or development, leaving audiences unable to care about them. While occasionally more successful in scares, T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue’s script is more akin to a bottom-of-the-barrel Netflix Original, failing to invest the audience in any of the characters in favor of annoyingly predictable scares.
Passenger is a serious downgrade from Øvredal’s other directorial efforts, like The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), which are much better at executing their scares alongside meaningful character arcs. It’s almost as if Øvredal himself was in the passenger seat for this film, not fully invested enough to make it anywhere near as compelling as his previous directorial efforts. Passenger has nearly nothing going for it, and while Øvredal’s effectiveness with horror occasionally jumps out for about three seconds, it’s largely frustrating and ineffective.
Akin to hour seven of a 12-hour cross-country road trip in the blistering heat of summer, Passenger is boring and makes the audience wish they were doing anything else. This film is a seriously disappointing entry from Øvredal, who I’ve previously regarded as an underrated force in the modern horror genre. This run-of-the-mill studio horror fails to impress or instill any compelling fear other than the basic jumpscare, and while original horror films are more important than ever now, this one simply did not arrive at the destination it attempted to move towards.
Review Courtesy of Nadia Arain
Feature Image Credit to Paramount via IMDb