“Passenger” is a little modest horror flick which mildly entertained me without surprising me that much. While it is a bit too thin and generic in terms of story and characters, the movie works to some degree in its familiar genre territory, and it provides some skillful moments of terror and dread along its rather predictable route.

After the prologue scene which effectively sets the ominous tone of the story, we are introduced to Tyler Genocchio (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie Brecker (Lou Llobell), a young couple who recently decided to quit their respective jobs and move out from their apartment in New York City for freely enjoying their life on a van. During next several weeks, they happily travel together here and there in US, and then Tyler proposes to Maddie to her surprise and delight during one evening.

However, their happiness does not last that long. When Maddie subsequently drives their van along some remote road in the middle of the following night, and something quite strange and disturbing occurs, and then she finds herself gradually disturbed by some unknown influence. At first, she just notices a mysterious figure from the distance, and then there come several small but disconcerting signs. In fact, she even gets a serious warning from a stranger she happens to encounter at one point early in the story.

Needless to say, a sense of dread is slowly increased around not only Maddie but also Tyler, and the movie doles out a series of good moments to bring more tension and anxiety to the screen. I particularly like how it dials up and down the level of suspense during one long-take scene where the camera fluidly pans around Maddie as she walks toward the van alone by herself, and I also enjoyed a key scene where her supposedly romantic moment with Tyler is unexpectedly interrupted by something lurking beyond their sight.

Meanwhile, Maddie comes to learn a bit about whatever is targeting her and Tyler. There are a number of old secret signs shared among hobos and nomads on roads, and what seems to be a mere scratch on her van turns out to be one of these signs. She also reads some online articles about something demonic which may exist somewhere on roads, and it becomes more apparent to her that this insidious entity has haunted her and Tyler since that disturbing happening early in the story.

As its two main characters are more terrorized along the story, the movie sometimes takes some time to bring a bit of human depth to them. Although they really love and care about each other, it later turns out that Maddie has not been entirely happy about their current van lifestyle in contrast to Tyler, and this naturally puts additional strain on their relationship besides their immediate issue with that demonic entity. Their characters feel rather superficial and conventional at times, but Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell mostly click well with each other during several quieter moments between them, and that is the main reason why we continue to care about whatever may happen to their characters in the end.

However, the other parts of the film feel rather deficient in comparison. For example, the screenplay Zachary Donohue and T.V. Burgess does not delve that deep into its interesting story background which will certainly take you back to Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-winning film “Nomadland” (2020), and the same thing can be said about what may provide a slim but possible chance of survival for its two main characters. Furthermore, I was also disappointed to see that the movie seriously under-utilizes Melissa Leo, an ever-reliable Oscar-winning character actress who is unfortunately stuck with a functional role during her brief appearance.

In case of the demonic entity frequently terrorizing its two main characters, the movie surely provides a fair share of shock and awe as this entity reveals more of itself in front of Maddie and Tyler later in the story, but I must point out that this is not so distinctive or memorable compared to what we have seen from those countless horror flicks about demonic entities. While things surely get more tense and disturbing during the expected climactic part, there is not much surprise for us in the end, and we become more aware of its glaring plot contrivance.

The movie is directed by André Øvredal, a Norwegian filmmaker who drew my attention for the first time with his second feature film “Trollhunter” (2010) and then made several other genre films including “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” (2016), “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” (2019), and “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” (2023). As far as I can see from some of his previous films, he is a good genre filmmaker who knows how to engage us more with good mood and storytelling, and that is evident also in the more effective parts of “Passenger”, though these good parts do not compensate enough for its weaker parts enough in my inconsequential opinion.

Anyway, “Passenger” is not a total dud at all due to the competent efforts from Øvredal and his crew members including cinematographer Federico Verardi, but it is one or two steps below the level of achievement shown from Øvredal’s better works. No, it did not bore me a lot, but it did not scare me a lot either, so I will let you decide on whether you are going to watch it for killing your spare time.

Sidenote: Please do not confuse it with Vadim Perelman’s “The Passenger” (2026), a thriller film starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Djimon Hounsou.