While it's a low-key, commonplace movie rooted in jolts and shocks and little else, director André Øvredal gives Passenger enough style and emotional pull to make it worth hitting the road for.
A couple of friends on a road trip at night pull over for a pit stop and are attacked by a mysterious, malevolent demon. Then, Maddie (Jacob Scipio) and Tyler (Lou Llobell) pack up and leave their New York apartment, heading for a life on the road in their luxury van. One night, they stop at a crash site to help a survivor, and from that moment on, Maddie begins seeing strange things, like a sinister figure in the distance, and three odd scratches on the van's exterior.
At a festive gathering of like-minded van-dwellers, Maddie meets Diane (Melissa Leo), who tells her the rules of the road: don't drive at night, and if you do, don't stop. While Maddie wrestles with how much she actually wants to live this life in motion, the scary sightings become more and more violent. Together, Maddie and Tyler must follow a vague clue left by Diane in order to survive.
With Passenger, Øvredal sets things up right away during the prologue wherein one traveler searches around the empty car for his vanished friend, the camera lurking in a circle around the car, with the possibility that something shocking will enter the frame at any moment.
Another sequence, in which Maddie walks across a huge, almost empty parking lot at night, the concrete shimmering with wetness, is even better. Again, the camera circles her, and makes that huge, wide-open space feel claustrophobic and dangerous. A third sequence cleverly utilizes a video projector, currently in the process of playing Roman Holiday, as a makeshift flashlight.
When not being stalked, Maddie and Tyler have real conversations that, even if they don't reach the level of Tennessee Williams, at least sound honest. They tease and they disagree, but they listen to each other, which is refreshing. The movie also paints an interesting picture of the culture of van dwellers, people who are perpetually on the road.
The monster, which, vaguely resembles the "Tall Man" from Phantasm, isn't terribly interesting (and doesn't really warrant sequels or a franchise), but he does give us the creeps when he leers and hisses suddenly. All in all, Passenger won't change the world for any horror hounds out there, but it does its job and it's worth the ride.
