Proof you should never pick up a hitchhiker, especially of the supernatural variety, Passenger delivers reliable suspense and creepy moments–even if it doesn’t set a new bar for horror.
I should note out of the gate that my brother is an executive producer on the film and that I spent part of a [very cold] day on set, so this review, if we can call it that, is hardly unbiased. In fact, this may be the most biased movie review I’ve ever written.
Passenger follows a young, attractive couple (Lou Llobell and Jacob Scipio) that has abandoned their structured lives in Brooklyn (watch for a small yellow car–my mom’s!) to live out of a luxury van, because the recipe for a successful relationship is to be crammed together with your loved ones for a sustained period of time. Anyway, after stopping at the site of a car crash, a creepy entity attaches itself to them, its singular goal to torment and eventually kill them.
What follows is a pretty straightforward horror thriller where things go bump in the night, glimpses of a demon-preacher come and go as the director sees fit, and the stereotypical drifter (played by Melissa Leo) ominously warns of a dangerous threat on the road in the way that strangers or wanderers tend to warn about dangers lurking nearby.
There’s nothing revelatory about the script or story, but Passenger still delivers some effective horror moments–notably a classic opening scene, a tension-filled sequence set in an unassuming gym parking lot, and a nerve-wracking scene where one of the stars must climb under the van as the jack begins to buckle.
Released a week after the wickedly good Obsession (shame on Paramount for dropping any horror movie between that one and the anticipated Backrooms), Passenger is more straightforward, more traditional. Director André Øvredal (Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and The Last Voyages of the Demeter) has the horror chops to elevate the material, however, though the movie may fall more into the vein of entry horror such as his Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adaptation.
Ultimately, it’s exciting to see my brother’s name on the big screen after years in the industry. Further, it was eye-opening to be on set and to observe the amount of time and resources that go into even the quaintest of scenes–on a frigid day in February in southern Washington State, they were filming the two leads wandering around at a van meet. There was nothing momentous about the scene, but hundreds of people were involved in bringing two minutes of screen time to life.
As Passenger goes, it isn’t the next Weapons or Obsession, unfortunately. It isn’t even Øvredal’s best film. But it can be appreciated for what it is, bias be damned.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.