I definitely didn’t need a warning as to why I shouldn’t exist outside of my metropolitan safe haven, but sure, I’ll accept this one. André Øvredal’s newest horror story is far from his scariest, but at its strongest, Passenger delivers a formula-straight ghost story with an on-the-road detour, offering those soggy supernatural cliches some fresh air to re-run their routes. Does the open road atmosphere make that much of a difference, though?
2026 in genre has forced our eyes open to fresh, original terrors by ditching the textbook. We haven’t completely abandoned the horror movie manual- just limited ourselves to a peek every now and then to make sure that our references are cited correctly. Curry Barker’s Obsession is the best example, with its wide release making a killing this past weekend. A week later, Passenger follows up the kid like the 50-something at the collage pep-rally, thinking they can blend in by flipping the brim of their hat to the back. Although Øvredal, known best for The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, does his thing with the film’s direction, Passenger puts forward only enough originality in the writers room to avoid asking the question; “are we there yet?”
Written by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess, the story follows a couple with the “van life” bug. Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) leave their Brooklyn apartment to follow the freedom of living life nomadically- challenging their idea of safety and security at home. The film opens with the remark “130 million people take road trips every year. 15,400 of them are never seen again”. Statistically, this isn’t a true statement, but as subscribers of the nomadic movement grow, especially by way of trends and social media, it makes for a cool jump-off point for a contemporary haunting.
After witnessing the brutal death of a car crash victim late at night, Maddie is plagued by visions of a pale man with long brittle hair and sunken eyes, who appears in ways that are unexplainable by logic. By the teachings of the horror movie cliche book, Tyler devalues her paranoia to a discomfort to life on the road. Passenger suffers from character types, where multidimensional characters should be. ‘Paranoid girlfriend’, ‘aloof boyfriend’, ‘wise old woman’, and ‘ghost’ are the extent of the playing pieces on the board. The use of dialogue is frustrating- overexplaining the story progression to the audience instead of exercising personality and motives of its characters.
At a van life meetup, “Burning Van”, Maddie meets Diana (Melissa Leo); a veteran of caravanning who immediately recognizes Maddie as a newbie. She warns her to take her safety seriously by following drifter community superstitions. “People don’t take trips, trips take people”, so if you’re going to commit to the lifestyle, you’ve got to know how to read “the signs”. In a tone that eludes understanding and high concern, Diana advises that the couple “stay off the quiet roads, don’t drive at night, & if you do, don’t ever stop.”
Those community superstitions are the base rules to navigate the supernatural predicament that the couple, and the driver witnessed before, had found themselves in. “The signs” really mean “the hobo code”; a set of symbols marked to warn all genres of nomads of danger nearby, or to guide them towards safety. The moment Maddie recognizes the symbol etched on the crash victim’s car is the same symbol scratched on to the couple’s tricked-out van, Tyler has no choice but to recognize the haunting that’s happening to them.
The entity acts as a boogeyman of sorts; a highway devil who thrives on chaos and trickery. It latches on to travelers as an unwanted passenger, and presses some decent level paranormal harassment before orchestrating a ruthless death. I would say that’s all this movie would need, as not all questions need to be answered in genre fiction, but the leniency of lore, missing character development, and the lack of any sort of relevant subplot leave the story to become a forgettable one.
There are two separate haunting sequences that really flex Øvredal’s knack for artistic value in horror- one utilizing a projector, and the other to demonstrate the full effect of the highway man’s violent trickery. But in the 94 minute runtime, most of the dead spaces are filled by the (once again textbook cliche) ban-aid solution of the hollow jump scare. For Passenger, a new concept on its own isn’t enough to drive its way out of being superficial. Horror fans specifically will see these plot beats from a mile down the road. I think we could’ve pressed play on a staycation instead.
