Mladen and Del review ‘Passenger’

Image courtesy of Paramount.

“Passenger” starring Lou Llobell as not-always-making-the-best-choice Maddie Brecker, Jacob Scipio as not-always-making-the-best-choice Tyler Genocchio, Melissa Leo as damn-I-didn’t know-that-a-neck-could-do-that Diana Larson, Miles Fowler as Lucas Tedesco and Alan Trong as Daniel, the onset victims, and others. Directed by André Øvredal. Score Composer Christopher Young. Script Writers Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess. One hour, 34 minutes. Rated R. In theaters.

Plot summary: Maddie and Tyler are yuppies tired of the grind. To shed their lives in Brooklyn, they buy a van camper to hit the road. And the road they hit when they make the mistake of stopping on a dark rural route somewhere out west to aid a car crash victim. Don’t look now, but there’s something in your rearview mirror and it’s inside your costly Benz.

Spoilers: Sure.

Mladen’s take

I start with a disclosure. There’s a small chance that I’m giving this satisfactory movie a lower grade than it deserves because it was made by Paramount Skydance Corp., which bribed the Imbecile Poser President to allow a merger with CBS by firing Stephen Colbert of The Late Show. What am I going to do now that the corrupt, Trump‑loving, piece‑of‑shit entertainment company has bought venerable Warner Bros Discovery?

More important, how am I going tell our treasured Del that I ain’t seeing a movie from now on if it’s made by that piece‑of‑shit fascist‑adoring business? Huh?

“Passenger” features good acting, a fabulous score and soundtrack, and a top‑notch soundscape. Too bad it’s made by a piece‑of‑shit studio. Oh, I’ve said that already.

Llobell as Maddie is convincing as a young adult realizing there’s a malevolent supernatural something targeting her and her somewhat fiancé because … why? The vanpers stopped to help a car crash victim. Scipio’s Tyler is solid as a skeptic about what Maddie is telling him as they travel here and there living the life he wants.

Oddly, the most interesting part of “Passenger” is the way Maddie and Tyler evolve as a couple while trying to avoid getting killed. They highlight the subdued horror that often accompanies a relationship when one person is only doing something for the other person’s sake. Of course, Tyler recognizes the folly of his ways but it takes an evil force wearing the collar of a priest to help him come around.

That’s another decent, though clichéd, component in the film, the religiosity. It’s the whole good v. bad, God v. Satan thing running along at a clip that doesn’t overwhelm the moviegoer with sanctimonious tripe. The spirit of the movie is that our beloved couple is protected by the saint of travelers and hunted by a fraudulent monk who was once the saint’s sidekick. Good enough.

And, finally, there’s the movie’s atmosphere. The roads are tunnels formed by the canopy of towering trees or traverse a ceaseless brown dessert. No street lights on the highway to hell. “Passenger” does a nice job integrating Hobo lore as part of its story.

“Passenger” malfunctions in the usual way for horror movies or, for that matter, sci‑film films. People make stupid choices because they ain’t responding to the call of self‑preservation. Even if they’re just being curious, we all know what curiosity does to the cat. Yes?

Maddie, if you’re walking to your parked Benz van and it keeps moving farther from you by itself without the engine ever starting every time you look away because you heard a spooky noise, it’s time to return to the 24‑hour gym where your boy is working out.

Yes, Tyler, I discourage you from driving the van down a desolate, rutted gravel road into a foggy forest where no one can here you scream, let alone get ghosted‑ed. Good God, man, can’t you see that your pseudo‑betrothed is shitting bricks from her nicely shaped ass because she’s afraid of the night?

“Passenger” is a C. I say that, in small part, because the Culture Wars demon has hardened my heart. I respect Llobell’s and Scipio’s acting, sure as hell loved the music and sound effects, but they did their good work for a studio driven by the inverted Pentagram or the Orange Blob with cankles and dementia. Take your pick. Either is bad. 

Del’s take

You’ve got to hand it to Mladen: Once he gets his rage on he’s like a snowbird closing in on a $10 buffet. You get in his way and you’ll be squashed flatter than a McDonald’s hamburger patty.

But he’s right. My opinion of Paramount – after its spineless culling of Stephen Colbert at the behest of President Harkonnen, and its castration of “60 Minutes” – ranks down there with being on the receiving end of a prostate exam administered by Freddy Kreuger. I have no problem abiding by Mladen’s boycott of Paramount “content” – I’ll add it to my ever-growing list of corporations that will never see one nickel of my meager assets – Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby and Target.

As for “Passenger,” what can I say? I haven’t been terrified by a horror movie since 2004 when Sarah Michelle Gellar watched a very pale, hairy Japanese ghost crawl across the ceiling in “The Grudge.” And who can forget the most beautiful woman in the world, Naomi Watts, answering the most sinister spam call of all time in 2002’s “The Ring”? That’s one she definitely should have let go to voicemail.

“Passenger” does have its moments.

It begins with a pre-title sequence, just like “The Mandalorian,” that actually scared me for a moment. Two young men are driving through a forested area – at night, of course – when they stop because one young man with the world’s tiniest bladder needs to pee. While Mr. Micro-Bladder is in the bushes doing his thing, strange sounds emerge from the forest. Then, the car horn blows continuously. At first, Mr. Micro-Bladder thinks it’s his buddy good-naturedly harassing him and returns to the car. But then he discovers the car is empty. …

From that point the movie follows a fairly predictable trajectory. Maddie and Tyler, the true viewpoint characters of the story, come across Mr. Micro-Bladder and his wrecked Honda and in that moment a transfer takes place, where whatever had been stalking the two young men now latches on to our newly engaged couple. That’s why you should never stop and render aid at the scene of a car accident, the movie repeatedly warns. I’m sure law enforcement and medical authorities are thrilled with that message.

Running parallel to this superficial plot is the conflict between Maddie and Tyler, who seem at odds over the direction their life together should take. Tyler loves the idea of working remotely and going wherever the road takes them. Maddie had too much of that vagabond existence in her childhood. She wants the stability of a home base. This is where the movie became somewhat annoying because neither Tyler nor Maddie will actually sit down and have an adult conversation about their differences. For God’s sake, people. Talk!

Where “Passenger” shines is in its atmospherics. As Mladen correctly pointed out (for once), director Øvredal makes effective use of the absence of light, the glance askance, and the power of suggestion to generate his spooky tension. Cars driving through a densely forested region at night bore tunnels of light from the dark. Parking lot lights illuminate a small patch of asphalt but make the surrounding areas look oh so much darker. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror suggests somebody is sitting behind you, but when you look directly, nobody is there.

For me, the most masterful use of light took place when Maddie and Tyler are watching a movie at a remote camp site. Something comes out of the woods and attacks them. They use the movie projector as a kind of flashlight, creating a very eerie effect as Jimmy Stewart’s face is projected against trees, shrubs and other surfaces. Nice!

Øvredal hides his monster through about two-thirds of the movie but finally succumbs to the temptation of Showing Us What He Looks Like, which for me was a buzzkill. I’m an adherent of the Ridley Scott school of filmmaking, which requires the monster be hidden until the very end, if shown at all. Again, human imagination is usually the root of all fear.

“Passenger” touched on ideas presented in other movies. Itinerate workers living in their vans and RVs was the central theme of “Nomadland.” The modern Western road milieu, with the monsters who inhabit that realm, harkened back to movies like “The Hitcher” and “Near Dark.” And the idea of some thing relentlessly stalking a person reminded me of one of my favorite horror movies, “It Follows.”

“Passenger” was better than most of the horror movies I’ve seen lately, but in the end it did not create a lasting impression – not like “The Ring.” For that reason I’m giving it a B. I won’t penalize it for being a Paramount project, though I wish some other studio would buy the rights to “Star Trek” so I can watch some of the newer shows.

See “Passenger” in the theater, if for no other reason than the superb sound.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.