Passenger review.
Worth taking for a spin.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Passenger
Directed by André Øvredal
Written by T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue
Starring Lou Llobell, Jacob Scipio and Melissa Leo
Passenger Review
If you caught the first trailer for Passenger you probably remember it. I don’t remember one time it played in a theater where I didn’t catch the crowd jumping at its final jump scare. I thought it was about the most effective marketing campaign a horror movie had thrown out in a while. Instead of getting into the characters or plot of the movie itself…it just threw you into a quick scenario and showed you one of the best jump scares since Smile’s trailer spoiled its best one. Passenger didn’t spoil anything in its trailer. That trailer turned out to be a truncated version of the film’s opening scene. Its big jump scare is less effective now that you’ve seen it…but it didn’t take any footage from outside the opening minutes of the movie.
Without giving away much of the story…what the trailer, and by extension the opening scene of the film, managed to do was paint a pretty good picture of Passenger’s concept. Some kind of an entity hitches a deadly ride on a lonely stretch of road. It’s enough to sell a movie on. Especially with that jump scare capping it off. As a full movie idea…it has a few more ups and downs.
Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) have decided to leave their desk jobs and big city living behind and take up van life. Tyler adapts to it right away. Maddie doesn’t seem so sure. When they witness the aftermath of the film’s opening scene and stop to help out…they pick up a demonic passenger and learn about his long history of causing death and destruction on the highway.
The first thing that Passenger does following its rollicking opening is to slow down. That’s not abnormal. Most movies do that. We all know how stories work…you have to introduce the characters we’re going to follow and explain their situation. As far as characters go…Maddie and Tyler are fine. Their story grows on you over time because Passenger doesn’t take the obvious road in front of it. Maddie is the one who sees and is terrorized by the Passenger to start. It would have been an easy choice to have her trepidation regarding her new van life be the source of a rift between her and Tyler. He loves it out here. She doesn’t. While you can certainly view the Passenger as a metaphor for their situation…the movie doesn’t make it a major point to do so. Tyler chooses to believe his new fiancé. Their inevitable conflict is rooted solely in their seemingly divergent paths in life.
There’s something compelling about watching two people who are slowly growing apart become so reliant on one another for survival. It’s certainly more interesting than having Tyler dismiss his fiancé’s claims of a ghost man attacking her when he’s not around. Most movies would have pitted them against each other. Tyler sticking by her side is more interesting. Passenger does throw him into the mix with their unwanted hitchhiker at the exact moment their reality based conflict is hitting the fan…but it still comes off as a more mature way of handling a relationship than you’d see in many horror movies.
Passenger is a sleek looking movie with some effective horror sequences. There’s also some investigation into what, exactly, has latched onto Maddie and Tyler. This is where the ups and downs come into play. When Passenger is committed to playing up the horror…it does some very fine things. The location of the movie…essentially in and around a van…call for some creativity. The scenes dedicated to that creativity make Passenger feel fresh and exciting. There are enough of them to earn a recommendation for the movie. The plot/story…well…it’s fine. I mentioned the best part about it already. Watching Maddie and Tyler navigate growing tension with an actual horror story is pretty good. The lore Passenger creates for its antagonist is mostly just gobbledygook you’ve seen some version of dozens of times.
It isn’t a deal breaker…but it doesn’t elevate anything going on in the movie either. You might be able to get to somewhere like “a simple and familiar old school campfire tale is enough to set up a horror movie”. It might even do enough for you not to be bothered by it. I found the backstory and ultimate resolution to be a bit too simple and clean. Even just thinking back to the immediacy of the trailer/opening scene of the movie gives me pause. Those characters picked up the Passenger and didn’t last five minutes. Maddie and Tyler practically take him across the entire country. This is explained away quickly by someone suggesting they’ve lasted as long as they have because he’s “enjoying the ride” but, really, what are we doing here? When you see the power and abilities the Passenger has…you really start to wonder how to justify some of the things that Maddie and Tyler get away with by the end.
What matters most is that Passenger is a pretty fun ghost story. When it wants to create atmosphere and deliver some stylish horror sequences…it does so very well. There are a few unique ideas here that are well worth seeking out. What it lacks in creative storytelling…it mostly makes up for with an unfamiliar setting and innovative horror scenes. You just can’t help but feel the slight story is being stretched a bit too far while they’re happening.
Scare Value
If you approach Passenger like a ghost story being told around a campfire…you’ll probably enjoy some of its fun tricks and stylish taunts. If you start to dig deeper into things…you might be left scratching your head on occasion. It stretches its premise thin by the end…but there’s more than enough worth recommending along the way. This Passenger is worth taking in once. But you’re probably not going to want to pick it up a second time.
3/5
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