After stopping at the scene of a gruesome accident on a remote highway, a young couple realizes they didn’t leave the crash scene alone. A demonic presence has hitched a ride, turning their van-life adventure into a nightmare they can’t escape. A film by André Øvredal, starring Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez, Miles Fowler, Alan Trong, Devielle Johnson, James William Clark, Tony Doupe, Charles Leggett, June Clemons, Bonni Dichone, William Lin-Yee, Joey Freitas, Michael Hilow, and Norman Lesperance.
PASSENGER
André Øvredal
(2026)
Late at night on a quiet road, Daniel (Alan Trong) lets out a sudden scream, jolting a sleeping Lucas (Miles Fowler) awake. Upset, Lucas assumes Daniel is playing a mean prank to make him think they had an accident. Daniel brushes it off, admitting he just needed someone to talk to to stay awake at the wheel.
Frustrated, Lucas grabs his tumbler and begins chugging water. Daniel tells him to slow down, pointing out that Lucas has the world’s tiniest bladder and warning him that he won’t stop on the side of the road for another bathroom break. Unbothered, Lucas takes another long gulp, asserting that he’s had chronic dry mouth for four years and that Daniel should just keep his eyes on the road.
Moments later, Lucas is squirming in the passenger seat. He slowly turns to stare silently at Daniel, dreading the furious reaction he knows is coming if he asks to stop, just as Daniel had warned. Sensing he’s being watched, Daniel glances over. The moment their eyes meet, Daniel loses it, shouting that he fucking knew this would happen.
Lucas pleads with him not to be mad, insisting it’s an emergency. Out of options, Daniel eventually pulls over, snapping that Lucas has exactly two minutes. Lucas jumps out and disappears into the trees off the side of the road to relieve himself.
As he pees, he hears rustling in the dark. Suddenly, he’s spooked by a long, sustained blare of the car horn. Annoyed, he assumes Daniel is just impatiently trying to hurry him up. But when Lucas reaches the car, he is confused to find all the doors and the trunk wide open. Daniel has vanished.
After scanning the empty road, Lucas circles the vehicle and shuts the doors one by one. As he closes the trunk, he notices a distinct three-line scratch, resembling a claw mark left by something incredibly sharp. He climbs into the driver’s seat and calls Daniel’s cell, only to hear it ringing right there on the dashboard. While he nervously looks around to see if his friend is hiding nearby, the radio suddenly blasts at full volume. Startled, Lucas frantically switches it off, a deep sense of dread setting in.
Out of nowhere, Daniel slams violently against the windshield, shattering the glass. His face is drenched in blood, as if he had been brutally attacked. He locks eyes with Lucas and begs for help. Before Lucas can even process what is happening, an invisible force yanks Daniel upward and drops him onto the ground behind the car. Terrified, Lucas steps out to help, only to discover that Daniel is already dead.
Suddenly spotting a shadowy figure standing on the edge of the road, Lucas scrambles back into the car and floors it. As he speeds away, he sees a mysterious man dressed entirely in black standing on a curve. He drives past the stranger, only to be startled by an identical man standing on the very next bend.
Convinced he is just hallucinating, Lucas keeps his foot on the gas until he approaches a third identical figure. This time, as Lucas tries to speed past, the man abruptly appears in the passenger seat, screaming at him. Everything goes black.
The film shifts to young couple Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and his fiancée Maddie (Lou Llobell), who have quit their jobs and moved out of their city apartment. Packing only the essentials into their van and leaving the rest in storage, they are ready to embrace van life and start a new chapter together. Before they hit the road, Maddie checks her Garmin GPS device to make sure it’s working properly. Tyler insists he has something better, showing Maddie a Saint Christopher medallion. He hangs it from the rearview mirror, explaining that his family always drove with one for protection. Unimpressed, Maddie jokes that she’ll put her faith in the GPS instead.
Six weeks later, Maddie is driving down a quiet stretch of road when a car suddenly pulls up alongside the van, honking the horn repeatedly. Lucas is behind the wheel, waving his arm out the window. Assuming he is just signaling his intent to pass, Maddie waves him on. However, the car just matches their speed. When Tyler wakes up, the car suddenly accelerates, speeding past the van and disappearing into the dark.
Moments later, Maddie is horrified to find the same car smashed into a tree on the side of the road. She quickly pulls over. While Tyler dials 911 to report the crash on Forrester Road, Maddie spots Lucas crawling out of the wreckage and sprints over to help him. But just before she reaches him, an unseen force from inside the vehicle swiftly drags him back in, and the door slams shut.
Hanging up with the police, Tyler steps out into the pouring rain to inspect the wreckage. Maddie warns him that she just saw something pull the driver back inside. Unfazed, Tyler approaches the vehicle and peers through the fogged-up window. He sees a man in a yellow jacket slumped motionless against the steering wheel, and no one else in the car.
Tyler opens the passenger door and climbs in, assuring the driver that an ambulance is coming. He leans in close as the man weakly whispers something unintelligible. Without warning, the airbag deploys with an explosive pop, violently pushing the driver backward and killing him instantly.
Outside in the rain, Maddie freezes when she hears the sharp crack of a branch. Scanning the area, she sees nothing out of the ordinary until she notices three deep, parallel claw marks scratched into the trunk of the wrecked car. Another branch snaps. She whips around to find a silhouette standing near the back of their van, staring directly at her. But as she cautiously steps closer to get a better look, the figure vanishes into thin air.
The next morning, Tyler spots three deep scratches on the side of their van. Unnerved, Maddie immediately recognizes the marks and tells Tyler that she saw the exact same pattern on the trunk of the wrecked car the night before. Tyler, once again, seems completely unbothered. He brushes it off, arguing that the crashed car was already banged up anyway and that the scratches probably are just a coincidence.
When the couple arrives at “Burning Van,” a festival for van-lifers, Tyler immediately geeks out over spotting his idol, Brad Fuller (James William Clark) of the Vandalize channel, eager to show off what he’s done with his van. Maddie wanders off through the tents and discovers a makeshift bulletin board on the side of an RV. It is completely covered in missing persons posters.
Among the faces, her eyes are drawn to a crude drawing of a stick figure with three distinct lines slashed across its body. Shaken, she eventually meets Diane (Melissa Leo), a veteran van-lifer who has been on the road for over twenty years. Learning that Maddie is heading West with her fiancé and is still adjusting to van life, Diane casually mentions that she is heading to Flagstaff next to visit a friend who owns a seafood restaurant there.
Maddie tells Diane about the crash they witnessed the night before. Visibly disturbed, Diane asks if they stopped to help. When Maddie stammers a reply, Diane’s expression turns grim, suggesting she knows exactly what they encountered. Instead of offering an explanation, Diane cryptically warns her that people do not take trips, as trips take people. She urges Maddie to stay off quiet back roads and avoid driving at night. If she absolutely must drive after dark, she must never, ever stop. Before parting ways, Diane wishes her well, adding that she doesn’t want to see Maddie’s face up on the missing persons board the next time she visits.
Don't drive at night. And if you do, don't ever stop.
—
A film by André Øvredal, starring Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez, Miles Fowler, Alan Trong, Devielle Johnson, James William Clark, Tony Doupe, Charles Leggett, June Clemons, Bonni Dichone, William Lin-Yee, Joey Freitas, Michael Hilow, and Norman Lesperance.
Directed by Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal from a screenplay by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess, Passenger is a supernatural horror film following a young van-life couple who find themselves stalked by a malevolent entity after pulling over to help a man in a highway car crash.
Although the premise isn’t an entirely new concept in folklore, I really enjoy how the plot blends classic urban legends like the vanishing hitchhiker. It plays on the idea of a vengeful spirit of a crash victim coming back to haunt the road. Usually, when a driver picks them up, the ghost either mysteriously vanishes before reaching the destination or kills the driver. I believe they did a very similar storyline in the 2005 Supernatural pilot episode.
The prologue is easily my favorite sequence in the film. Alan Trong and Miles Fowler deliver fantastic performances as Daniel and Lucas, navigating dialogue that strikes the perfect tone between terrifying and hilarious. The camerawork is mesmerizing. The way it pans around from inside the vehicle creates this incredibly claustrophobic feeling, making you so nervous and tense that it feels like you are trapped right in the car with them.
At first, I assumed the entity was pulling its victims into another realm, trapping them on an endless loop of highway that always circled back to it. Instead, it turns out the creature possesses a form of teleportation, allowing it to instantly reappear anywhere. I really like the deliberate ambiguity here. The movie never explains the entity’s true origin or how it selects its prey, leaving the audience to question whether the attacks are entirely random, or if something specific about the victims is drawing it in.
Another deeply unsettling sequence happens after Maddie leaves the gym, walking alone to the van through a seemingly empty parking lot. Startled by the sound of footsteps, she repeatedly turns around, but finds nothing there. Yet, every time she faces forward again, the van, which should be right in front of her, mysteriously retreats further into the distance. It’s a brilliant way to build suspense and establish that a supernatural force is at play.
Unfortunately, the film struggles to maintain its momentum and sustain that creeping sense of dread. The narrative is weighed down by inconsistencies regarding the evil presence and the illogical choices made by the main characters. Tyler is supposed to be the superstitious one. He literally brings the Saint Christopher medallion, the very object that actually protects them from the entity. Yet, he is inexplicably the one dismissing every red flag and warning sign. We are well past the era of ’90s horror where characters are expected to be naive and stupid. When people hear a weird noise or see something strange, they should turn around and flee, not walk toward it!
If the film leaned into a horror-comedy like Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, I could have easily overlooked its flaws. Instead, it establishes a dead-serious tone, meaning it has to be judged as a straightforward horror movie. Overall, it is still quite entertaining to watch. I really like the core premise, the terrifying prologue, and the amazing camerawork. It is just a shame that the second act gets so muddled and the climax lands with such an underwhelming conclusion.
PASSENGER was theatrically released in the United States on 22 May 2026.
