We just got back from the theater (again), and this time we checked out Passenger, the latest film directed by Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal. If you’re keeping score at home, May 2026 has been absolutely relentless for horror movies, and we’ve been in those theater seats more times than we can count. “This month never stops. Won’t stop. Can’t stop. Won’t stop,” as Arthur put it right at the top of the episode. He’s not wrong.
Passenger follows a young couple who, after witnessing a gruesome highway accident, realize they didn’t leave the crash scene alone. A demonic presence latches onto them, and their van life adventure turns into a waking nightmare. Sounds like a solid setup, right? It is. The problem is that the execution doesn’t quite reach the heights that Øvredal’s best work has hit in the past. We landed somewhere in the middle on this one, and we have thoughts.
Øvredal’s Track Record and the Weight of a Stacked Month
For those unfamiliar, André Øvredal has a filmography that horror fans respect. He directed Trollhunter back in 2010, a Norwegian dark fantasy that put him on the map. Then came The Autopsy of Jane Doe in 2016, his first English-language film, and that one still holds up as one of the creepiest things either of us has watched. “So creepy,” Arthur agreed without hesitation.
Since then, Øvredal took on the 2019 adaptation of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (decent, though Meaghan has strong feelings about it given how much that book meant to her as a kid) and The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which, as Meaghan diplomatically noted, “sometimes adapting one chapter of a novel written as logs of a captain on a ship doesn’t necessarily make for the most entertaining vampire story.“
We have to give the man credit, though. Every single project he takes on is completely different from the last, and that kind of creative range is something we genuinely appreciate.
Here’s the thing about Passenger’s timing, though. It dropped in the same month as Hokum, At the Place of Ghosts, and Obsession. We were already riding a streak of nines and tens going into this one.
It would have been extremely difficult, maybe to keep that run going in the first place, given how fantastic all of those films were.
Meaghan admitted. Passenger also opened against the Mandalorian and Grogu movie, which is a rough draw for any mid-budget horror release. Scheduling is scheduling, and completely different companies are making these calls, but the timing did this film no favors.
The Cast and Characters
The cast here is small but capable. Lou Llobell plays Maddie, the more hesitant half of the couple. Arthur recognized her from Foundation on Apple TV, where she plays one of the main characters. “Seriously, it’s that cast in that TV show,” he said, clearly a fan.
Jacob Scipio plays Tyler, and Meaghan spent a solid chunk of time trying to place who he reminded her of. The answer? Steven Strait, the actor from The Covenant, Sky High, and 10,000 BC. “They look really similar,” she insisted, and honestly, we see it.
Then we have Melissa Leo as Diana, a character who pops up to offer guidance (however vague) about the entity pursuing our leads. This is an Academy Award-winning actress; she won Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter back in 2011. Having that kind of talent in even a smaller role adds weight. And Joseph Lopez plays the Passenger itself. “Great job. So scary,” was Meaghan’s assessment. Short, sweet, and accurate.
The characters themselves are fine. Not annoying, not particularly deep. It took a while for either of us to actually care about them, but they at least behave in ways that make sense.
For the rare occasions, they’re actually doing smart things.
Arthur pointed out, which is something you notice because so many horror films fail at this basic hurdle.
What Works: Cinematography, Scares, and Atmosphere
If there’s one area where Passenger genuinely shines, it’s the cinematography. Federico Verardi did a hell of a job here. There are scenes in this movie that we’re still thinking about, and not because of the scares (though those are solid too), but because of how they were constructed visually.
Arthur kept coming back to a scene where Maddie goes behind the van at night. Their hazard lights are flashing, and she’s on a completely black background. Red light flashes on; you see her. Red light flashes off; pitch black. She moves through the frame, and you’re just waiting, scanning the background, bracing for the Passenger to appear. He doesn’t. But that tension was real.
That scene really stayed in my head.
Arthur said.
There’s another one involving a film projector being used almost like a flashlight in the woods. Maddie and Tyler are watching Roman Holiday, and you get Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s faces flashing across the trees while this couple is searching for the entity. It overlays onto different surfaces, and it just looks cool.
It’s a fun, creative camera trick, and we appreciated the craft behind it. A parking lot scene where the van keeps moving farther away in what turns out to be a continuous rotating shot also stood out. These are the moments where you can feel Øvredal’s skill as a director.
The scares themselves landed better than expected. Meaghan noted that there were at least two moments where the scares genuinely surprised her, which doesn’t happen often.
They circumvented my expectations in terms of how it happened.
She said. The film builds tension in a way that feels earned, not cheap. And the transitions between calm, mundane moments and sudden escalation were one of Arthur’s favorite things.
A scene of Maddie leaving a gym and walking through a parking lot at night slowly builds from nothing into something genuinely unsettling. There’s an observation Meaghan made about how that scene captures the unease women feel in situations like that (public spaces, nighttime, strangers watching) and the direction handles it without being heavy-handed.
The atmosphere deserves its own mention. This is a road movie set in wide open spaces, which should feel expansive. Instead, by a certain point, the characters feel trapped. The van becomes less of a vehicle for adventure and more of a cage they can’t escape.
It creates an interesting level of isolation, and you almost feel kind of suffocated.
Meaghan explained. The contrast between the open road and that claustrophobic feeling is one of the smarter things the film pulls off.
We also want to shout out the kills. There aren’t many (a small handful, really), but the practical effects work is strong, and the deaths are jarring when they happen. “It didn’t skimp on the ones that it did have,” Meaghan noted. Arthur was particularly impressed by one near the end involving what he lovingly referred to as “Melty face.” We won’t expand on that.
Where It Falls Short: Story, Lore, and the Passenger Himself
And here’s where things get complicated. For everything the film does right visually, the writing struggles to keep pace. The story itself felt generic, and both of us agreed it had a quality where it could have been made a decade ago and been the same movie. That’s not always a bad thing, but in this case, it felt more like a limitation than a choice.
The backstory between Maddie and Tyler is interesting on paper. Tyler wants the van life because he apparently had a rough home situation growing up (“behind closed doors, it’s very different” is how he frames it). Maddie grew up in foster care and craves stability. These are characters whose fundamental needs are directly opposed, which is rich material. But the film doesn’t do enough with that tension. It’s there, it informs their dynamic, and then it kind of just sits in the background while demon stuff happens.
The bigger issue is the mythology around the Passenger itself. There are “rules” introduced (don’t travel at night, don’t stop for anything on the road), there’s a hobo code that actually exists as a real thing, and there’s a Saint Christopher connection that ties into the patron saint of travelers. All of that tracks.
But then the film leans into broader religious elements that never get properly explained. “I don’t understand what the passenger’s tie-in to anything religious is at all,” Meaghan said. The exposition has a “just roll with it” quality that feels less like intentional ambiguity and more like something was cut.
Arthur also flagged the character design of the Passenger as a weak point. “It was too generic,” he said. The entity just looks like a creepy guy with some makeup. Meaghan compared it to something you’d see in a Conjuring or Insidious film, and that’s not exactly a compliment in this context. For a film that goes to such creative lengths with its cinematography and sound design, having the central threat look so plain feels like a missed opportunity.
“There’s like a missing piece there,” Arthur said about the lore gap. Whether it was a pacing decision or something got lost in editing, the story suffers for it. Meaghan put it well:
Sometimes it’s just like everything that comes together that has to happen, unfortunately, to make the movie happen, sometimes means that the story suffers for it.
The Verdict and What’s Ahead
So where did we land? Meaghan gave it 4.5 out of 10 digs, noting it would be a perfectly fine movie to throw on with a group of friends where nobody needs to pay close attention, but sitting in a theater staring at it amplifies the plot holes and shortcomings. Arthur went with 5 out of 10 digs. Not bad. Not great. Right in the middle.
And look, in a month that didn’t include Hokum and At the Place of Ghosts and Obsession, maybe Passenger would have landed differently. “We couldn’t stay with the nines and tens out of tens here forever, guys,” Meaghan said. “There’s no way that was going to happen.” Fair enough.
But we still want to say this: in a time where everyone complains about the lack of original horror, this entire month has been stacked with original projects. “Support the art that is being created in the horror community,” Meaghan said, and we could not agree more. Passenger is worth your time, even if it’s not going to top anyone’s year-end list.
Next week? Backrooms. Arthur has already started digging into the lore, and there is a lot of it. “We might even need to do some kind of a mini episode just on the lore of it,” he said. Homework for the hosts, content for you. Stay scared and stay tuned.