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Passenger Review: Jump Scares And Clumsy Mythology Abound In This Vanlife Horror Movie

By Chris Evangelista

Updated: May 21, 2026 9:18 am EST

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Paramount Pictures

It seems like every other week now a new horror movie arrives that fans are ready to proclaim as "the scariest movie of the year!" If you've grown weary of such hype, I have some good news: no one is going to be lavishing such praise on "Passenger," the new jump-scare heavy nonsense from the usually dependable André Øvredal. Øvredal helmed the genuinely spooky "The Autopsy of Jane Doe" and the somewhat underrated fright flicks "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" (which he wants to make a sequel to) and "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," aka "Dracula On a Boat." And while the filmmaker attempts to inject some style into "Passenger," he simply can't overcome a clunky script and two highly uninteresting lead characters. But hey, if you like loud noises and ghoul faces shrieking directly into the camera, you might have some fun here.

And to be fair, "Passenger" is_ fun. sometimes. Unfortunately, it's also frequently dull, to the point where the short 94 minute runtime felt twice as long to me. This is a bummer, because the marketing for the film has been pretty solid, and the first trailer had me hoping for something special. Alas, "Passenger" is not special. I suppose you could argue that it's okay for this film to be so middling and average — not every new horror movie needs to raise the bar for the genre, after all. But "Passenger" is so clumsy and lackluster that it mostly left me feeling depressed.

Passenger is a vanlife horror movie

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Paramount Pictures

After an effective opening sequence in which two buddies on a road trip run afoul of something supernatural, "Passenger" settles into the story of Maddie (Lou Llobell) and her boyfriend Tyler (Jacob Scipio), who haven given up their New York apartment to embrace the vanlife lifestyle, where people decide to live out of their vans with hopes of grabbing hold of whatever freedom is left in an increasingly constricting world.

Unfortunately, Maddie and Tyler are completely flat characters who never once seem interesting. We eventually learn that while Tyler is in love with the vanlife concept, Maddie is less enthusiastic and would like the trip to eventually come to an end. Beyond that, we get some vague talk about how Maddie was shuffled around to foster homes as a kid, and also_ that she really loves soft-voice public access painter Bob Ross. "Passenger" is probably the first horror movie to keep frequently bringing up Bob Ross, going so far as to have the characters recite one of his most famous sayings: "We don't make mistakes, we make happy accidents."

I didn't care about Maddie and Tyler for one second. I'm not saying I was rooting for their painful deaths, I just wasn't really in the mood to be trapped in a van with with them for 90-some minutes. This is a big problem for a horror movie that wants us to worry about the fate of its lead characters, especially since the film doesn't really give us anyone else to fixate on, save for Diana, played by Melissa Leo, who exists to only provide some dire warnings and rushed exposition.

Passenger doesn't seem to know what to do with its main monster

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Paramount Pictures

After several weeks on the road, Maddie and Tyler run afoul of a car accident on a rainy night. Bad luck for them, because this makes them targets of The Passenger, a malevolent ghost/demon/monster who likes to stand perfectly still at a distance for a few minutes before popping up right in front of your face and screaming "AHHHHHH!!!!"_ Played by Joseph Lopez, The Passenger kind of looks like Iggy Pop, which I guess is appropriate, because Iggy Pop has a song called "The Passenger," and wouldn't ya know it, that song plays over the end credits.

One of the biggest issues with "Passenger" is The Passenger himself. I don't need supernatural monsters to make logical sense; the more mysterious a creature like this is the more effective it might be — what's scarier than the unknown? But the script by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on what this thing is or how it works.

We get some vague talk about the legend of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. There's also mention of the Hobo Code, which drifters would scrawl on barns and fences as a way of communicating with fellow travelers. Exposition device Diana adds that The Passenger has been around "forever." None of this really adds up or fits together. Why is The Passenger, a seemingly immortal, ancient demon, using the Hobo Code, which was is from the early 1900s? Is he warning his victims? Why would he do that? I suppose I'm overthinking this, but if your mind starts to wander towards these questions in a movie about a supernatural ghoul, then the film isn't doing its job.

In the end, Passenger just isn't scary enough to excuse its flaws

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Paramount Pictures

Øvredal tries to liven things up with some showy set pieces, like a scene where Maddie nervously moves through an empty parking lot at night while the camera keeps slowly rotating around her in a complete circle, or another scene where the couple's van has to drive across a field strewn with corpses, or arguably the movie's best sequence, where the light from a digital projector beaming "Roman Holiday" onto an makeshift outdoor movie screen becomes an instrument of terror. There's also the occasional pop of gore, best exemplified by a moment where a character has their head pulled all the way back to the point where their neck bursts open spewing blood and vocal cords.

But none of this is particularly effective, and that's the biggest sin of "Passenger." I can overlook shoddy lore and boring leads if a horror film at least delivers some sort of thrills and chills. But there's absolutely nothing scary about "Passenger." Will a few of the jump-scares get you? Most likely, but that doesn't mean they're good_. I'm not anti-jump-scare, but there has to be some sort of thought put into the moment beyond, "What if we crank up the soundtrack really loud and have someone scream?" That's not scary. That's startling. And that's a completely different thing. Ultimately, "Passenger" gives us a road trip not worth taking. Maybe just go see "Obsession" again instead.

/Film Rating: 5 out of 10

"Passenger" opens in theaters on May 22, 2026.