Passenger (Blu-ray Review)
Director
André ØvredalRelease Date(s)
2026 (September 8, 2026)Studio(s)
18Hz Productions/Coin Operated (Paramount Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A+
- Extras Grade: F
Review
Passenger is a bit of an odd cookie. It has a nice pedigree being directed by genre filmmaker André Øvredal, who’s no slouch. It also looks pretty great, thanks to cinematographer Federico Verardi who makes the camera into a character in non-distracting ways and figures out how to use red light to not contaminate the frame. Any failings it has are in its itemized road movie horror grocery list screenplay that fits in just about everything you could be scared of while driving across the country. This approach ends up painting itself into a corner, logic-wise, because its “monster’s” inherent motivation doesn’t make any sense. There isn’t a “way” for it to decide to come at you. If you stop your car at night on the road, any road (i.e., not a particular road or specific stretch of road) for any reason (you didn’t “brake bad” doing a hit and run, or kill an innocent animal) and when this entity imprints onto you, you’re basically dead by dawn. What the hell is that? Sure, in life, anything can happen—but this is a genre movie—there needs to be a reason, or the movie just ends up being stupid. And Passenger is stupid.
We cold open the film with two buddies, Daniel and Lucas, driving down the road at night and one of them (Lucas) has to pee. While taking his leak in the woods, Lucas hears Daniel scream and the car horn starts to blare. When he gets back to his car, Lucas finds Daniel gone, the doors are all open and there’s a claw mark on the trunk. Daniel is then thrown through the front windshield by a dark force. Lucas screams aaaaand Scene! Meanwhile, a “van life” enthusiast couple, Maddie and Tyler, are restarting their life as vagabonds, living a simpler life on the road: free of possessions anchoring them down. One night during their journey, they witness an erratic driver passing them on the road and soon find him down the line crashed into a tree. Oh boy, it’s Lucas! And because they stopped, whatever it is that killed him, is now attached to them, complete with a claw mark on the side of their van. The road story grocery list starts from here: the ancient evil has ties to the legends of hobo culture and the graffiti left behind to signal to others shorthand messages. Missing people throughout time are missing because of “The Passenger”. Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers, cameos several times, in several ways. And of course, the creature can only strike at night yet somehow can control time by making you fall asleep while driving but keep you from crashing. It’s just a lot and its ambition to squeeze so much out of what is scary to drive at night pulls you out of the film attributing to the “this is so stupid” factor. There are some cool scenes and a few jump scares that work, but all and all, this isn’t a very good horror tale and best left as a last-ditch watch on Paramount+ or TNT.
Paramount releases Passenger on Blu-ray supported by a very nice video image. Encoded at 1080p in 2.39:1, the image has dense blacks, solid colors and, as mentioned above, the reds really pop without getting distorted, murky or excessively grainy. Sound is also quite nice. There’s a solid English Dolby Atmos (Dolby True HD 7.1 compatible) track, also with German, French and Spanish (Latin American), all in Dolby Digital 5.1. There’s also an English Descriptive track in Dolby Digital 5.1. Menus and Subtitles are available in English, English SDH, German, Spanish (LA), French and Turkish. There are no extras aside from a Digital Code for the film on Fandango or iTunes.
Passenger tries, and it’s not a terrible film, it’s just not something you’ll remember watching after a few weeks or even want to watch again.
- Todd Doogan