{"id":14490,"date":"2026-05-23T14:11:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14490"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:11:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:11:36","slug":"passenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/05\/23\/passenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Passenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Passenger<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content, some gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Andre Ovredal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Young\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Federico Verardi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 22, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez, Miles Fowler.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0One could be excused for assuming that Paramount\u2019s decision to release the low-budget horror Passenger<\/strong> on the same weekend as the new Star Wars film means it\u2019s a stinker and they have no confidence in it. I\u2019ll grant that it\u2019s creaky and derivative. It\u2019s basically an update of \u201cterror on the road\u201d horrors like Duel (1971), The Hitcher (1986), Joy Ride (2001) and that one segment of Creepshow 2 (1987). It only vaguely establishes its boogeyman and the rules governing his existence. It\u2019s not perfect, not by a long shot, but it\u2019s definitely not a stinker either. It\u2019s actually pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you\u2019re a regular moviegoer, you\u2019ve probably seen the teaser for Passenger<\/strong>. How can you not have? It\u2019s been running for the past few months. It shows a couple of guys driving along a dark, empty road in the dead of night. The driver pulls over so his friend can relieve himself in the woods. The horn starts blowing continuously mid-pee. The irritated passenger returns to the car to find his friend gone. It gets freakier from there. It\u2019s an effective opening.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then we get into the main story. A young couple, Tyler (Scipio, Bad Boys: Ride or Die) and Maddie (Llobell, Foundation), leave behind the hustle and bustle of the big city for life on the road. Riding around in a tricked-out van, they\u2019re happy at first, but Maddie becomes disenchanted. It turns out sleeping in parking lots and hanging out with fellow travelers isn\u2019t as romantic as she thought it would be. It\u2019s actually a real drag.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The proverbial s*** hits the fan when they come across a horrific one-car accident on a remote country road. They watch helplessly as the driver, the passenger from the opening sequence, dies a gruesome death. That\u2019s not the worst thing to result from the encounter. By stopping, Tyler and Maddie enable a malevolent spirit (Lopez) known as \u201cPassenger\u201d to latch onto them. He follows them everywhere, terrorizing them at every turn. That\u2019s what this particular entity does and he doesn\u2019t stop until his victims are dead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Andre Ovredal (The Last Voyage of the Demeter), Passenger<\/strong> is like one of those scary stories teens tell their friends in the dark at sleepovers or camp-outs. It\u2019s a simple, uncomplicated story of a young innocent couple running afoul of a deadly supernatural being while traveling through dark, unfamiliar territory. There are no surprise revelations or deep psychological insights. The entity isn\u2019t a manifestation of guilt or past childhood trauma. He\u2019s simply a scary figure in the vein of The Tall Man from the Phantasm films. He just is; no explanation. Isn\u2019t that scarier than a demonic being with a backstory?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is about what you\u2019d expect in a B-movie with no above-the-title stars. The biggest name in the cast is Melissa Leo (Oscar winner for The Fighter). She plays a fellow traveler who knows all about the evil of Passenger. In fact, everybody but Tyler and Maddie seem to know about Passenger. Leo does a good job in her limited screen time. Both Scipio and Llobell do solid work in the lead roles. Llobell looks suitably frightened at all the right times. So does Scipio. What\u2019s more, their characters are consistently likable. They don\u2019t act entitled or behave horribly. The worst thing they do is park for too long on a residential street. They don\u2019t deserve any of what happens over the course of the movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I will now address the most important question about Passenger<\/strong>. Is it scary? I would say yes, mostly. It has a few effective \u201cBOO!\u201d scenes and at least two truly freaky moments. In the first, the concept of space disappears as Maddie tries to make her way to the van across a giant parking lot at night. It\u2019s like something out of a nightmare. In the other, Passenger turns up while they\u2019re watching a movie on a screen Tyler rigs up in the woods. Maddie uses the projector as a flashlight to try and find him. So much for outdoor movie night, right? Then there\u2019s the climax. It\u2019s more nightmare fuel. Ovredal clearly knows how to work the horror genre efficiently and effectively.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll say this for Passenger<\/strong>. I love the random nature of the pop culture references. Ovredal manages to work Bob Ross, Roman Holiday and Hawaii Five-O into the narrative. I got a chuckle out of it. It also speaks to the fun nature of Passenger<\/strong>. It\u2019s a horror movie that doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously. It\u2019s not one of those elevated horror pieces from A24. It\u2019s just a good scary movie. It doesn\u2019t need to be more than that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passenger (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content, some gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Andre Ovredal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Young\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Federico Verardi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 22, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez, Miles Fowler. Rating: *** \u00a0One could be excused for assuming that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Passenger-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14494,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14490\/revisions\/14494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}