Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought of running away – of quitting your job, breaking your lease, buying a van, and leaving it all behind. For anyone stuck in a rut, the nomadic lifestyle probably looks like a dream. But André Øvredal’s “Passenger” would have you think twice before hitting the open road.
After a terror-laden cold open, we meet Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell), two lovebirds who have just taken the van life plunge. For about six weeks, they have a great time, but Maddie – less adventurer, more homebody – quickly starts to feel like van life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That belief is strengthened when she and Tyler witness a gruesome car accident – one that leaves them bound to a supernatural entity called the Passenger intent on stalking them down every highway and backroad across America.
Setting a horror movie from the perspective of two van life newbies – naive interlopers into an intricate, tightknit nomadic culture – is a concept ripe for exploration. And the most interesting parts of “Passenger” show are our protagonists dealing head on with the fact that they’ve entered into a space they know nothing about. Unfortunately, beyond some well-deployed scares, “Passenger” gets too lost in its lore, ultimately setting off on a path to nowhere.
Soon after they witness the car accident which releases the demonic force upon them, Tyler and Maddie head to a van meetup that feels more like a country music concert tailgate than a campground. Here, it becomes clear that part of the reason Tyler wanted to live in a van in the first place is because of his obsession with a certain van YouTuber.
Tyler has lived the nomad life vicariously for so long he’s become convinced it’s the only path to true freedom, but Maddie is not so sure. The film (written by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess) spends a lot of time on Maddie and Tyler’s different upbringings – him in an ostensibly stable home where everyone was unhappy, and her in a variety of different foster homes – as a way to explain their differing views on van life, but that ultimately feels overstuffed and unnecessary. A character doesn’t need a core trauma to have a reason to want to sleep in the same place every night.
Especially when you’re being stalked by a demon. At this van meetup, Maddie meets Diane (Melissa Leo), a veteran nomad who, after learning that the Passenger has set his sights on Maddie and Tyler, gives her a few rules to live by: don’t drive at night, don’t stop for anyone, stay on the main highways, etc. But, it’s too late. Maddie and Tyler, cosplayers as they are, entered into this lifestyle without really thinking about the dangers it poses. They have the stink of interloper about them. When they find themselves at an actual camp (not a party full of YouTubers), desperate for help, the people there are suspicious and standoffish. They know Maddie and Tyler don’t belong.
Øvredal clearly has a proclivity for clever scares. In one scene, Maddie makes her way across a deserted parking lot to the van, spooky sounds constantly distracting her from her destination. As she looks around for the source of the noise, the camera turns with her in an unbroken 360 degree shot, before finally ending up back at the van – which is now farther away than it was before. In the film’s best sequence, Maddie and Tyler watch “Roman Holiday” on a portable projector. When the Passenger suddenly arrives, Maddie uses the projector as a lightsource, enormous, eerie images of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck scattering across the forest as we look for the demonic figure in their likenesses.
But, as compelling as the central premise is and as scary as these moments can be, “Passenger” unfortunately falls victim to Christian and Satanic lore. Its final third is more focused on the ins and outs of defeating a demon rather than any of the interesting themes it sets up at the beginning – such as intruding on a world you don’t understand, or how being a woman living this lifestyle is a hell of a lot scarier than being a man (a shot of Maddie walking alone by two men smoking cigarettes in a parked car is one of the film’s most frightening images). As the end of the film descends into exposition, other flaws become more apparent, such as the lackluster love connection between Maddie and Tyler. When the scares run out and the ideas run dry, “Passenger” simply runs out of gas.
