Ingeniously plotted though it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, this humble horror film crafts dread by playing with perception, indulging in sillier supernatural thrills on the way.
By Elena Lazic
Plus IconElena Lazic
See All
Courtesy of Paramount Some of the most effective horror films craft their scares out of the reassuring everyday. In “Passenger”, the familiar routines and sounds associated with driving become ominous signs of incoming disaster, as a mysterious figure haunts and attacks drivers on the American highways. Norwegian director André Øvredal does not reinvent the wheel with this humble genre entry, but the film’s slick formal language, game central performances and intelligent thematic explorations make it a satisfying thrill-ride that should please fans of other roadbound horrors like “Jeepers Creepers” and “The Hitcher”. Beginning, like many other such horror films, with a violent setpiece that introduces the entity bound to later come after our heroes, “Passenger” announces from the start a rigorous visual style. Introduced in that opening sequence is a recurring visual motif that never feels like a gimmick: the camera turning on its axis from inside a vehicle, capturing in a long take what the driver sees but also, crucially, what is out of sight behind them. Some of the best-executed scares in the film make savvy use of the oldest trick in the book, creating suspense from a character’s limited field of vision. In fact, the film goes so far as to shake the foundations of perception, its characters growing more and more uncertain of whether what they saw was real, or just a vision. The expertly made opening sequence ends with the most clichéd element in the film, a split-second closeup of a decrepit male face smiling menacingly — the eponymous Passenger. Thankfully, there is more to the film than its villain, who appears rarely enough for the sight of him to still send a chill down the spine every time. As the next sequence introduces our leading lady, Maddie (Lou Llobell), larger themes enter the picture with her.
Related Stories
