A couple's road trip turns into a nightmare when a demonic figure known as the Passenger attaches itself to them.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: André Øvredal
Starring: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo
Duel. The Hitcher. Race with the Devil. Some of the best horror movies have been set not in creaky European castles but on America's open roads. Such films prove that a wide open expanse can be just as lonely and unsettling as a dimly lit corridor in a Gothic mansion. Passenger isn't in the same league as those aforementioned examples of road horror, but it's a solid entry in a sub-genre that rarely fails to miss the mark.
Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell play Tyler and Maddie, a young couple who ditch their Brooklyn apartment in favour of what has become known as "van life." If you've seen the Oscar-winning Nomadland or stumbled across any of the many YouTube channels that document the phenomenon, van life is a growing trend of Americans who commit to living in a van or mobile home, travelling across the country like modern nomads. It's a romantic notion, but it also presents its challenges. There are several high profile cases of "van-lifers" either being murdered or disappearing in mysterious circumstances. Passenger is the first mainstream horror movie to channel such fears.
Six weeks into their new life, Tyler is fully embracing his newfound freedom while Maddie is struggling to adapt to the reality of a life without the comforts of a traditional home. Maddie becomes even more unsettled when the couple stumbles across a crashed car on a lonely stretch of road. The driver (whom we earlier saw in a prologue) passes away in front of Tyler, and while this is happening Maddie swears she sees a strange figure in the distance. The crashed car bears three distinctive slash marks, and the following morning the couple find the very same marks on the side of their van.
Screenwriters Zachary Donohue and TW Burgess do a decent job of setting up their film's lore, the sort that could possibly fuel a franchise. "The Passenger" is a demonic figure known to latch itself onto travellers who make the mistake of stopping for him. The film incorporates the real life "hobo code," a secret means of communication developed by America's homeless nomads in the early twentieth century. Symbols originally designed to warn of the dangers posed by the authorities take on a creepy new meaning here. Melissa Leo pops up in the Olwen Fouere role of the woman who has seen it all before and warns the youngsters to turn back. Had Passenger been made in the 1930s, this part would no doubt have been played by Maria Ouspenskaya.
Passenger's premise is built around the biggest slice of hokum imaginable, but director André Øvredal is canny enough to ground his supernatural thriller in relatable scares. The movie's most effective sequences are those that exploit our real world fears of having to walk across a dark parking lot late at night or seeing odd shapes in the black of the woods. There is a great set-piece in which a projector beaming a copy of Roman Holiday is used as a makeshift torch - you'll never look at Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the same way.
The finale sees Øvredal dispense with such grounded scares and instead opt for a climax that wouldn't be out of place in one of Lucio Fulci's Gates of Hell shockers. But by this point the movie has earned such a shift into the fantastical. Along with Øvredal's steady directorial hand, this is down to the likeable and believable central performances of Scipio and Llobell. Refreshingly, the script doesn't feel the need to burden Tyler and Maddie with any cheap TRAUMA™ backstories; trying to survive the night with a demonic entity is more than enough for them to deal with.
Passenger is in UK/ROI cinemas from May 22nd.
