Passenger, directed by André Øvredal, stars Lou Llobell, Jacob Scipio, Joseph Lopez, and more. Going into this film, I was actually pretty excited to check it out. When I saw the original teaser for the film a few months back, something about the concept immediately grabbed me. That teaser is essentially the cold open for this film, and so as the movie was playing out right off the top, I was excited to see where it was going to go. I had heard some middling reviews on it going in from some of my peers who got to see it the day before, but I still went in excited because I think the concept of a road trip gone wrong definitely makes for a good horror film. As somebody who’s been on long road trips before and found myself on creepy roads in the middle of the night or driving down single lane roads surrounded by trees, I’ve definitely had moments where I thought I saw something between the trees and just told myself to keep driving and not even think about it.
The film focuses on a young couple living the van life whose road trip turns into a nightmare after they witness a gruesome highway accident and realize they may not have left the crash scene alone. A demonic presence known as The Passenger begins haunting them wherever they go.
Unfortunately, despite my enjoyment of the concept and my excitement going in, I really wasn’t a fan of Passenger. I found it to be fairly disappointing and lackluster in a lot of ways. Right off the bat though, I do think the concept is great. I like the idea of a road trip gone south, and I think when the film really focuses on having the characters stranded in creepy locations off the side of the road with this evil entity following them, that’s where the movie is at its best. There are some effective jump scares and creepy moments throughout, and from a filmmaking standpoint, it’s competently made. The cinematography is solid, the sound design and sound mix work well, and there’s a creepy musical score underscoring everything happening in the film.
Lou Llobell and Jacob Scipio both do a good job as the main couple. I don’t think they’re given the strongest material to work with, but their performances are solid enough and you buy into the fact that they’re an actual couple. Joseph Lopez, who plays the entity itself, also does a good job bringing a weird and eerie vibe to the character. Something about his smile, his deadpan look, and the makeup effects really elevate the creep factor whenever he’s on screen.
The problem is that those creepy moments are trapped inside a film with a very generic and meandering narrative. The movie becomes overly reliant on exposition as the characters slowly uncover what’s happening, and it constantly falls into repetitive sequences of the same scares and situations over and over again. A lot of the jump scares are the kind you can see coming from a mile away, where the movie just blasts a loud noise at you instead of actually building tension. There are maybe a couple of genuinely effective scares in the film, but overall, this isn’t something that really got under my skin.
I think that’s what makes the movie such a disappointment. Conceptually, there are moments where it feels like the film could become something really creepy and memorable, but it ultimately just feels one note. The characters themselves are pretty thinly written and mostly exist to make terrible horror movie decisions that continue getting them into more trouble as the story progresses. It all leads to a finale where they try to get rid of this entity once and for all, but even there the movie introduces rules for how the creature operates and then immediately breaks those rules whenever it’s convenient for the plot. That really removed a lot of the tension and stakes for me because it stopped feeling believable within its own world.
In a lot of ways, Passenger feels like a horror movie you’ve already seen before, just with a slightly different setup. There’s nothing about it that feels especially unique or memorable, and by the end of it I honestly felt pretty indifferent. It’s not terrible, but it’s also not something I think most people are going to remember a few weeks from now. It feels more like the kind of movie you casually throw on one night while scrolling through streaming services rather than something you need to rush out to theaters to experience.
That’s especially disappointing because 2026 has already delivered some genuinely strong horror films, especially in May with movies like Hokum and Obsession getting a lot of attention from horror fans. I was hoping Passenger would be right alongside them in terms of quality, but instead it just feels like a missed opportunity. There’s a solid concept here and a few creepy moments, but the movie never really takes things to the next level.
One thing I did appreciate was seeing Latino and Spanish-speaking talent involved in the film. Lou Llobell, who has Spanish heritage through her father, stars as one of the film’s leads alongside Jacob Scipio and Joseph Lopez, bringing some nice representation to the cast.
Ultimately, Passenger just feels like a generic road trip horror flick that never fully capitalizes on its premise. The filmmaking is solid, the cast is decent, and there are a few creepy moments sprinkled throughout, but nothing about it feels memorable enough to really stand out in the crowded horror landscape of 2026.
Rating: 5/10