A spoiler-free review of Paramount’s upcoming release.

★★★☆☆

My week started with a bright spot on a dark road. Monday night, I journeyed to San Francisco’s AMC Kabuki theater for an early screening of Paramount’s new film Passenger. The movie, which premieres this weekend, is written by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess, and directed by André Øvredal of The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) fame.

The film follows Maddie, played by Lou Llobell, an unenthusiastic passenger on her boyfriend’s #VanLife adventure. Their travels are disrupted when they witness a horrendous car accident that claims the driver’s life. Shortly thereafter, Maddie begins seeing images of a frightening spectre following them.

The film is succinct, formulaic and sprinkled with some good visuals and shocking jumps. The plot follows a well-trodden horror outline and leaves no unanswered questions by its end. Spoiler-free details ahead!

The film’s scares are mostly of the jump variety, which is not my personal preference. They are well done, though. Plenty of the jump scares are stretched, delayed and unexpected enough to frighten. One startled me so badly, I exclaimed aloud in the theater—a big personal no-no. There is a real effort made for psychological scares: fear of the open road, fear of the dark and what lurks within it. But then, those are commonly used ideas. This film didn’t quite bring enough newness to land that airplane: the flashlights furtively waving in the night, and cryptic messages felt familiar, to say the least.

There were some well-done unfamiliar moments, though. In the full cut of the opening scene, much of which is viewable in the trailer, we get a great shot with a circular camera pan from inside a vehicle while we observe a character circle the outside of said vehicle. The camera’s location and motion keep our shoulders high as we take in the same confusing visuals as the character in real-time. Another unique moment happens about ⅔ of the way through the film when the characters use a projector actively displaying a black and white film to search the darkness for their attacker. The effect is disorienting and kaleidoscope-like though the scare it leads to is predictable.

Another element I loved: the Americana horror theme, something I didn’t know intrigued me until seeing Him (2025) twice during its opening weekend last year. Maddie and Tyler travel by van from New York to Arizona. We get beautiful shots of the nature they pass along the way; we see them stop at diners and #VanLife meetups and we also get a story crafted around the dangers of traversing American freeways. Lore, community, and culture built by Route 66 undergird the film. It’s a fun and unique central element.

Ultimately, I didn’t leave the theater asking any deep questions about myself or life itself, nor was I shaking off any creeping dread. However, I did leave feeling satisfied with having experienced a stylish and satisfying ninety-four minutes of cinema.