André Øvredal has proven himself capable of delivering horror with atmosphere and restraint. Whether it was the creeping dread of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, the gothic ambition of The Last Voyage of the Demeter, or the gateway scares of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, his work usually contains at least a few moments that linger long after the credits roll. Unfortunately, Passenger marks the filmmaker’s weakest effort to date – a slickly packaged supernatural road thriller that begins with promise before veering into painfully familiar territory.
The film opens with a prayer to St. Christopher scrolling ominously across the screen: “Protect me today in all my travels along the road’s way…” It’s an effective tone-setter, immediately establishing the highway as a place of danger and unseen evil. Øvredal follows it with a genuinely terrific opening sequence centred on two friends driving down an isolated road, culminating in a jolting title-card scare that demonstrates the director still knows exactly how to stage tension without relying on excessive gore. For a brief moment, it feels like the film might become something special.
Instead, it quickly settles into a generic supernatural formula that feels assembled from leftover pieces of the The Conjuring universe.
The story follows newly engaged couple Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio), who have embraced van life and hit the open road in search of freedom and reinvention. It’s clear Tyler is the real driving force behind the lifestyle change, while Maddie is mostly trying to be supportive, but after witnessing the aftermath of a horrific crash connected to the film’s opening, their cross-country adventure turns into a waking nightmare.
Soon Maddie begins sensing a strange presence lurking around their RV – a demonic entity known only as “The Passenger.” To the screenplay’s credit, writers T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue avoid the frustrating cliché of having Tyler constantly dismiss Maddie’s fears. The couple actually communicate like functioning adults, which is refreshing for a horror movie. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t give either actor enough depth to elevate the material beyond standard haunted-highway tropes.
Things become even more conventional once Melissa Leo arrives to dump exposition as Diana, a local who explains the legend of the “Highway Man from Hell” – a supernatural force truckers and van-lifers have apparently learned to survive by obeying two simple rules: never drive at night, and never stop for stranded travellers. Naturally, Maddie and Tyler have already done both.
From there, Passenger spends far too much time overexplaining its central evil. Creepy markings appear on the RV, vague mythology is introduced, and endless ominous warnings are exchanged, but none of it makes the film scarier. In fact, the more lore the movie piles on, the less interesting “The Passenger” becomes. What initially works about the entity is its ambiguity – the unsettling sense that something is simply there, lurking just beyond the headlights. The film ruins that tension by gradually dragging the monster into full view and explaining away its mystique.
There are still flashes of the movie Øvredal could have made. A handful of jump scares land effectively, and some of the visual reveals are genuinely unnerving when the film exercises restraint. But those moments become increasingly sparse as the story barrels toward an anticlimactic finale that resolves itself with surprising ease, draining the narrative of any real terror or consequence.
What’s most frustrating about Passenger is that the premise itself is strong. A demonic force haunting travellers on endless highways feels primal and cinematic – a horror concept built around vulnerability, isolation, and the inability to escape. But rather than lean into that simplicity, the film overloads itself with mythology and exposition until all tension evaporates.
A slick premise undone by its need to explain too much, Passenger ultimately takes the scenic route to a destination horror fans have already visited far too many times before.
TWO STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Passenger is now screening in Australian theatres, before opening in the United States on May 22nd, 2026.
