PASSENGER movie poster | ©2025 Paramount Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez
Writers: Zachary Donohue & T.W. Burgess
Director: André Øvredal
Distributor: Paramount
Release Date: May 22, 2026

The new PASSENGER – not to be confused with Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 THE PASSENGER, 2022’s THE PASSENGER (LA PASAJERA), or other previous films with similar titles – is crowd-pleasing horror, the kind that has the audience interacting enthusiastically (as opposed to derisively) with the screen.

This is the result of a number of intelligent choices made by PASSENGER’s writers, Zachary Donohue & T.W. Burgess, and its director, André Øvredal.

For starters, the movie’s mythos feels like something we’ve heard without it being over-familiar or pulling from any single specific source. Everyone has heard stories about haunted lonely places and demonic hitchhikers. PASSENGER combines these in its malevolent title spirit (played effectively by Joseph Lopez).

PASSENGER also has plentiful, sturdy jump scares and just enough exposition to keep things on track without making it seem like there’s a spate of survivors out there.

Perhaps best of all, PASSENGER is one of those blessed movies, horror or otherwise, that doesn’t require anybody to behave like an idiot to keep the plot moving. People don’t spend time doubting what they and we have clearly seen or tempting fate by unnecessary risky behavior. Consequently, as tension ramps up, we feel claustrophobia and helplessness along with characters who are doing everything they know how to do as they attempt to survive.

The Passenger begins by terrorizing two young men who pull over on a stretch of dark forest road for a needed pit stop. This doesn’t go well.

We then meet our two protagonists, Ty (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell) are moving from New York to life on the open road in their huge orange Mercedes-Benz van.

The van seems a bit like the TARDIS – large as it looks on the outside, it’s even roomier on the inside, with bed and kitchen space. It is also the source of low-key but growing friction between the couple. Maddie has viewed this excursion as a road trip/vacation, while Ty is entranced by the notion of permanent van life.

Then, on a stretch of dark road at night, they come upon the car from the opening sequence, its doors open and a possibly injured individual inside. Naturally, being decent people, Ty and Maddie pull over to try to help. Quicker than you can say “viral curse,” they’ve got problems.

Van life is a real thing and, while it is not the point of PASSENGER, the movie has some fun with the subculture, including its class divisions. (The Mercedes is an object of derision for van lifers who we gather are nomadic due to necessity rather than choice.) It seems like fertile ground for any number of stories.

In PASSENGER, van life is mainly a plausible source of a smattering of information on the nature of the evil that’s descended on our protagonists. Director Øvredal devises some clever methods of shooting the van’s interior, so that we’re not stuck with the same few angles. (Despite the spacious look, getting camera and lighting equipment along with the actors inside it cannot have been easy; it has been stated by the production that, yes, the shots were done inside a vehicle, rather than on a soundstage.)

Llobell is gently reasonable and convincingly terrified, while Scipio manages to make Ty a bit obtuse without losing our sympathy. Melissa Leo is impactful as a van lifer who offers some assistance.

For those who get a little impatient with, say, the CONJURING franchise, PASSENGER eventually swerves slightly into Catholic lore, but it’s not overwhelming.

PASSENGER is overall a smooth, enjoyable supernatural fright ride.

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