At one point in Passenger, the heroine uses her van’s camera system to find the ghost that’s been following her.  I’ve seen dash cams and backup cams before, but this was cooler.  It gave her a 360 degree view outside of the van, which eventually revealed the ghost.  While the scene played out exactly as I expected, it was a clever way of using modern technology so that for once, the poor girl can finally look around without her head on a swivel.  This and other little details showed that the filmmakers wanted to make an interesting “stalking ghost” movie, and I was entertained by the results.

The motto of Passenger should be, “Ghosts happen when you’re making other plans.”  Which is exactly what happens to the first victims of the “Passenger”.  In a car headed somewhere in the dead of night, Daniel (Alan Trong) and Lucas (Miles Fowler) drive along an empty road through the woods.  Daniel suffers from dry mouth and drinks liquid constantly.  Lucas, the driver, teases him because Daniel will need to make a pit stop very soon.  Which he does, providing another example of how fortunate men are that the world is their urinal.

As Lucas “drains the main vein”, the car horn starts blaring.  Thinking Daniel is giving him crap, he hurries back to the car and finds all of the doors open, several curious scratches on the trunk but no sign of Daniel.  Creepy noises from the trees motivate Lucas to get in the car.  Suddenly, Daniel crashes through the window.  He cries “help me” before being pulled away by something.

As Lucas speeds away, and sees a creepy figure on the side of the road again and again.  Suddenly, it’s in his car!  Before we see what happens to Lucas, the title card appears with one word: Passenger. (This is all in the trailer, so it’s not a spoiler.)

Before learning what happened to Lucas, the movie cuts to Brooklyn, NY. Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) are packing up to hit the open road.  Tyler’s dream has been to see the country in a van, and has purchased one with all of the comforts of home.  Maddie seems ok with leaving her life behind to go along with Tyler’s dream, but you can tell she’s not crazy about the idea.  (The beautiful studio apartment they’re leaving probably has something to do with that.)

Tyler’s planned on proposing to Maddie at a posh resort, but Maddie’s insistence on getting BBQ along the way forces a change of plans.  He proposes while they’re parked in a residential neighborhood, but a hostile neighborhood watch gestapo rudely interrupts.  “If you don’t leave in 60 seconds I’m calling the cops!”  Sheesh.  Maddie says “yes”, but doesn’t put on her ring. (Second thoughts, perhaps?)

That night, Tyler and Maddie cross paths with Lucas as he speeds past them.  They soon find him crashed by the side of the road.  Maddie says that Lucas is alive, but Tyler takes a closer look and confirms he’s definitely dead.  Maddie notices the scratches on Lucas’ car and wonders what they mean.

In the daylight, our couple arrives at a campground full of van people.  While Tyler talks to a van life legend he follows on YouTube, Maddie meets a crusty old broad named Diane (Melissa Leo) who warns her to never drive at night, and never to stop at a crash site.  (Oops, too late!)  When Tyler and Maddie reconvene, they see scratches on the van exactly like those on Lucas’ car.  Tyler gets someone in camp to buff them out, but it’s obvious they’ve been marked by something.  They later take part in the night’s festivities (cleverly named “Burning Van”) and even do some line dancing.

When Maddie and Tyler stop at a tacky souvenir store in Colorado, she spies a book about the hobo code.  If you watched Mad Men, you may recall an episode on this very subject.  Maddie notices that the scratches mean “unsafe area” in hobo symbology, a clue of sorts.

As is typical for these “ghost encounters” movies, Maddie is attacked by the ghost whenever she’s by herself.  And Tyler returns to find her scared out of her wits, he tells her that there’s no spooky old man in their van.  The best of these scenes takes place at a strip mall parking lot at night, where the van somehow gets further away whenever Maddie turns around.  Even though I’ve seen scenes like this many times, when they’re perfectly staged like they are in this movie they still give me the creeps.

Since the internet is where everybody looks for answers these days, it’s there that Maddie learns that their ghost is named “The Passenger” and has his own “unsafe person” hobo symbol.  (Neat!)  Like malevolent ghosts tend to do in horror movies, it’s latched onto Maddie and Tyler and will keep pursuing them until they’re dead.  After another scary night spent in the woods with the Passenger, Maddie and Tyler seek out Diane for help.  But will she, knowing that the Passenger is involved?

Recommendation

When I say that Passenger is a simple horror movie, I mean that as a compliment.  It is not “elevated” horror in any sense. There’s no convoluted lore or characters suffering from unresolved trauma.  It’s a straight-forward ghost story that only wants to scare us with spooky sights and sounds.  If you’re a fan of horror movies, the “you’re being followed by something that will kill you in the end” plot device will remind you of Smile, Drag me to Hell, The Ring and many other horror movies, where the victim is doomed because of incredibly bad luck.

Passenger may be familiar and have modest ambitions, but it works because it’s well-made.  Horror veteran director André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Last Voyage of the Demeter) does an excellent job bringing the material to life.  Øvredal is proficient at staging scenes that build tension and deliver jump-scares, and this movie has plenty of both.  The movie is beautifully shot by Federico Verardi, who ingenuously uses headlights and tail lights as substitutes for the old “candle in the dark” effect in haunted house movies.

The movie has two handsome and charming actors in the lead roles in Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell, and they exhibit plenty of chemistry throughout.  I liked how they’re in love, but not quite on the same page because of issues going back to their difficult childhoods. He prefers an untethered, nomadic existence, but she wants to settle down.  The movie graciously gives them enough scenes to discuss their feelings like adults, and they come off as likeable and relatable people.

While the plot is very pedestrian, the script by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess is filled with little details that make the movie richer than I was expecting.  The movie expresses its fondness for painter Bob Ross, delves into the hobo code, showcases van life, needle-drops the Hawaii Five-O theme, showcases Roman Holiday, explores the legend of St Christopher and expresses love of tacky souvenir shops.  The movie’s quirkiness gives it more than enough personality to compensate for its generic feel.

My complaint with Passenger is that it’s slight.  It’s only 94 minutes long, and I wondered if it was cut down significantly before it was released.  More time should have been devoted to the myth of the Passenger, for example.  Melissa Leo’s role is a forgettable two-scene cameo.  And scenes describing the couple’s lives before hitting the road are notably absent.  The movie is decently paced, but it comes at the expense of the character development.

As a campfire ghost story, Passenger is effective.  While the malevolent entity at its center is nondescript, the film benefits from its charming leads, quirky details, evocative nighttime photography and scary scenes.  There’s nothing new here, but it’s done well.  Recommended.

Analysis

Passenger is one of those horror movies in which the ghost (or demon) can do anything.  For example, in the opening prologue, the Passenger:

• reappear at regular intervals on the side of the road
• teleport into a moving vehicle
• throw a victim through a car windshield and then yank him out

Later in the movie, the Passenger torments Maddie by:

• include or exclude itself from a video recording
• entering her van and restraining her with a safety belt
• moves her van further away while her back is turned
• randomly appearing on a car camera
• controlling her and Tyler’s minds to get them to drive until its dark
• yanking out all of the St. Christopher medals she attached to the van ceiling.

I could go on, but you get the point.  The Passenger not only can control minds, it also has unlimited powers.  If it wasn’t constrained by daylight, the Passenger would be all-powerful.

That a ghost, demon or malignant entity can do this much damage isn’t new to horror movies.  The ghost in The Ring can do anything to its victims after they’ve watched the cursed videotape.  It can call you on the phone, make water emerge from anywhere and can walk out of your television set.  Similarly, the ancient evil that the innocent set free in the Evil Dead movies can fly about, pick you up and drop you anywhere, like a demonic drone.

I give Smile and its sequel a lot of credit for avoiding this scenario.  Instead of the demon having unfettered powers, it makes its victims believe that it does by poisoning their minds.  All of the incredible things we thought the victim was experiencing are just a delusion intended to get the victim to give up and be killed.

The reason I bring this up is that I recalled a segment on Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, where Roger complained that the ghost in The Ring could do things that weren’t logical.  How could a ghost make a phone call?  Ebert responded by saying that “it’s a ghost, it can do whatever it wants.”

While I understand Roger’s point of view, I agree with Roeper’s rebuttal.  When it comes to ghost stories, you’re dealing with supernatural forces who only want to kill you.  If you accept the premise of ghosts being real, nit-picking about what powers they should or shouldn’t have is beside the point.  It’s a movie and the ghost is a plot device intended to scare us. Its not that complicated.

The Nomadland connection

As someone who really liked Nomadland, I chuckled over the possibility that the screenwriters behind Passenger were inspired by the Best Picture winner.  Like Nomadland, the movie has key scenes where Maddie and Tyler meet up with groups of fellow van-lifers in the desert.  Melissa Leo’s Diane is in the Frances McDormand wise old lady role, offering advice to the two young-uns.  I can’t say this conclusively, but Passenger has to be the first horror movie version of a film that won Best Picture.

Veteran actresses, beware!

I still haven’t forgotten Exorcist: Believer for bringing back Ellen Burstyn, only to poke out her eyes.  One of the weaker aspects of Passenger is that Melissa Leo is only around for two scenes, and her cameo ends with her head getting ripped off.  I hope the money was worth it for both of them.

Road signs

• Several connective scenes are missing from Passenger.  For example, did Maddie’s childhood love of Bob Ross inspire her to become a painter?
• Along those lines, what was Tyler’s job that he made enough for the two of them to go on a prolonged tour of America without worrying about money?
• I still love that Maddie gets her first clue about what’s happening to her from a physical book she just happened to see in a souvenir store.  Chance discoveries like that used to be commonplace before book, music and video stores went out of business in favor of streaming/digital content.
• Was Tyler a fan of the original Jack Lord Hawaii Five-O or the Scott Caan remake?
• The closing needle drop of Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “The Passenger” didn’t work.
• I was very surprised that there wasn’t even a hint of a sequel in the closing credits.
• The fact that Passenger shows two thirty-somethings taking the time to appreciate a classic black and white movie gives me hope.