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May has been a strong month for new horror movies, but as we approach the end of the month, it’s safe to say that Passenger is the weakest of the bunch. A disappointment indeed, considering how interesting the trailer looked.
Passenger follows an unconvincing couple Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell), who have traded the Big Apple for an RV, which they’re using to live a simpler life on the road. I wasn’t hugely impressed by their dynamic here, unfortunately, which posed some problems as we spend the majority of the movie with these two leads.
On their journey, Tyler and Maddie learn that the roads are haunted (because of course they are) by an evil apparition called The Passenger. They learn all about him from an RV enthusiast called Diana (Melissa Leo), but there’s nothing all that interesting about The Passenger and his backstory. This is the point in a movie where you’d hope to get some cool exposition, but it falls flat.
After being warned not to drive at night and if you have to, not to stop, Tyler and Maddie naturally ignore this advice when they witness an accident. Following on from this typically dumb horror movie decision, The Passenger hitches a ride and terrorizes them, simply because he can, I guess.
In my opinion, the Passenger exists to provide a lot of cheap, annoying jump scares and little else. There’s nothing particularly interesting about this horror antagonist at all, and he has a weak backstory, which is a missed opportunity in my eyes, given how the trailer and marketing hyped the concept of him up so much.
I’ve been quite harsh so far, so let’s examine some of the positives. Yes, it’s a scary movie. There are scares in abundance as mentioned above, so this is not a slow burn, psychological horror at all. If you are the horror fan who loves being scared and having things jump out at you, then you will not be disappointed. Be warned, though, the trailer does spoil a lot of them.
Unfortunately, I find it lazy, so this technique of randomly jump-scaring the audience with no build-up or clever camera work (aside from one scene, where it does work) got boring real fast. We’ve seen this done a hundred times before in similar movies. Demonic creature screams out of nowhere, we jump, rinse and repeat. It doesn’t work if you don’t have the strong, compelling lore or tension building to go alongside it.
The cinematography is very good, though, especially when it comes to tight spaces. It is atmospheric, but it seems to rely on this too much. The movie is well shot and looks good; the red backlighting is especially cool, but I was expecting a lot more.
Passenger‘s predictability is disappointing too. If you’ve seen a lot of horror movies, you won’t be surprised by many of the reveals or scenes that were intended to shock. In a world with so many fresh, exciting new horror movies, it falls by the wayside.
Despite the underwhelming nature of Passenger‘s final destination, it’s worth seeing if you simply want a scary movie that will make you jump out of your skin. If you’re more interested in the fright-filled journey than the end of the road, you might have a better time than I did.
But from a director like André Øvredal, who was behind the brilliant Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, I expected something far better.
Passenger is in theaters globally now.
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