Some of the most effective horror films craft their scares out of the reassuring everyday. In “Passenger”, the familiar routines and sounds associated with driving become ominous signs of incoming disaster, as a mysterious figure haunts and attacks drivers on the American highways. Norwegian director André Øvredal does not reinvent the wheel with this humble genre entry, but the film’s slick formal language, game central performances and intelligent thematic explorations make it a satisfying thrill-ride that should please fans of other roadbound horrors like “Jeepers Creepers” and “The Hitcher”.
Beginning, like many other such horror films, with a violent setpiece that introduces the entity bound to later come after our heroes, “Passenger” announces from the start a rigorous visual style. Introduced in that opening sequence is a recurring visual motif that never feels like a gimmick: the camera turning on its axis from inside a vehicle, capturing in a long take what the driver sees but also, crucially, what is out of sight behind them. Some of the best-executed scares in the film make savvy use of the oldest trick in the book, creating suspense from a character’s limited field of vision. In fact, the film goes so far as to shake the foundations of perception, its characters growing more and more uncertain of whether what they saw was real, or just a vision.
The expertly made opening sequence ends with the most clichéd element in the film, a split-second closeup of a decrepit male face smiling menacingly — the eponymous Passenger. Thankfully, there is more to the film than its villain, who appears rarely enough for the sight of him to still send a chill down the spine every time. As the next sequence introduces our leading lady, Maddie (Lou Llobell), larger themes enter the picture with her.
Packing up a few final items in a cardboard box, she looks around at an almost comically gorgeous apartment, sunlight beaming out of large windows and reflecting back from shiny wood flooring, and her resolve briefly falters. Putting on a brave face downstairs, she greets her boyfriend Tyler (Jacob Scipio), and the orange camper van that will now be their home-on-wheels. It is refreshing to see a horror film that does not give their protagonist a dreadfully traumatic back story, and explores topics other than grief. Here, co-writers Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess flesh out a less dramatic but more directly relatable tension, between the stable routine of a settled home life, and the call of the open road.
Flashing forward six weeks, the film finds Maddie and Tyler celebrating the fact that their relationship has survived this time on the road — but cracks have already begun to appear. Maddie’s romantic view of this lifestyle clearly did not include quite so many traffic jams or nights spent sleeping in 24-hour gym parking lots to avoid angry residents and fees. When Tyler proposes and Maddie accepts, she quickly suggests splurging on a hotel room, with crisp bedsheets and all the adjacent comforts of a life spent between four solid walls.
On their way to the hotel, the young couple are rattled by a dangerous driver, whom they later find crashed into a tree. They stop to help him — he is the survivor from that opening scene — but an unseen force drags him back into the car and kills him. Or did that really happen? Only Maddie saw the unnatural, violent pull back inside, and most of the scares that follow likewise blur the line between reality and fantasy.
A particularly fun, imaginative sequence sees Maddie in an empty parking lot at night, walking back to the van — which is in a different place every time she turns around. As with many other horror characters like her, she does not tell anyone at first about the bizarre things she sees, concerned she might be going mad. But here, there is also another fear: Could these visions be her brain’s way of expressing an unhappiness she is eager to conceal? Are there creepy noises coming from the back of the van, or does she just hate being here? It’s a pleasingly ingenious bit of storytelling, neatly tying together the film’s emotional and supernatural stakes.
This narrative feat also sets the stage for a smart and surprising third act turn: when Maddie confesses her visions to Tyler, he actually believes her, and the two of them become warriors determined to put this evil being to rest once and for all. There, the film leans into its sillier aspects, namely the lore about the Passenger. A figure from religion, he’s feared by the crusties who embrace the van life — chief among them old-timer Diana, played with understated gusto by Melissa Leo.
Because this “highwayman from hell”, as Diana so deliciously puts it, manifests himself in the mind rather than in material reality, the film’s more explicit movement towards the uncanny in that final act does not feel like too much of a sharp turn. In fact, it allows for especially nightmarish imagery, culminating in a battle between heaven and hell worthy of the best of the “Conjuring” films. With much of the tension relying on perception, Llobell essentially carries the entire film on her shoulders, her reactions to the seen and the unseen especially important to the film’s fabric. She acquits herself admirably, and more horror filmmakers would be wise to put her in the driver’s seat.
