Passenger - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Passenger



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:




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Movie
Generic horror movies have been a staple of the horror genre for as long as I can remember. Usually sequels to much more popular films that get driven into the ground by producers thinking they can keep the magic alive indefinitely. But there are more than their fair share of generic horror movies that are based upon unique IP’s, and sadly this is where Passenger falls into. It’s got a mildly interesting plot harkening back to old wives' tales regarding a mysterious “passenger” that hobos and travelers see, but quickly devolves into jump scares for the sake of jump scares. Rote plot points that are telegraphed from the second they come on screen, and an ending that just limps its way across the finish line.

Van life is the focal story point for this tale, with young Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and his girlfriend Maddie (Lou Llobell) deciding that the daily grind in New York City is not for them. Well, mostly Tyler really, as he’s been tired of boring pedestrian life for a while now, but Maddie is just along for the ride. After outfitting a van with all the essentials, the couple heads out on the road with no looking back. But along the way,y the trip starts to lose its luster. Van life sounds fun in your head, but after the countless miles, missed hotel appointments, and general chaos of it all, the trip starts to look a LITTLE bleak for Maddie. But things take a sharp turn when the two run across a crazed driver who crashes in front of them, and the two stop to give aid.

Turns out they MAY have encountered something otherworldly, because soon after that Maddie starts to see and hear things that aren’t there. Soon she’s seeing a haunted-looking man in her peripheral vision, with scarier and scarier results until even Tyler can’t deny that something malevolent is attached to them. Looking up mythology and oldwives's tales, the two realize they’re being haunted by “the passenger”, a demonic entity who has plagued the roads for thousands of years, and only attaches to people when they stop in the middle of the night on the road. Now Maddie and Tyler are running for their lives, hoping against hope to outrun the hellish highwayman beforeit'ss too late.

Watching the trailer pretty much shows you the entire opening scene of the movie, with two friends running into the passenger seat on the side of the road, but the film jumps into another lane, giving us the story of Tyler and Maddie for the rest of the film. But while that may seem like a subversion of expectations, or a twist, it’s really not. Rather, it just retells that trailer in a more extended format, filling the runtime with Maddie and Tyler’s squabble and jump scares that are so poorly timed you could see them coming a mile away. And frankly, it is one of the most generic films I’ve ever seen. The plot of Passenger is taken from a hundred other “demon attaches itself to its victims” stories, and Maddie and Tyler’s relationship is NOT that fleshed out. It’s one of those movies where the audience is watching the story hop from one cliched trope to the other, never shifting to the right or the left, but rather just sticking to well-worn tropes to the point of boredom.




Rating:

Rated R for strong violent content, some gore, and language.




Video:

Passenger is a very dark, digitally shot film, and as a result, it doesn’t always look AMAZING. Large swathes of the film are shot inside of a grungy little van, with little outside lighting. That being said, this is largely a nice-looking film with good detail levels, and even some nice colors when the couple parks at a trailer camp in the daylight. Inside the truck sometimes suffers from delineation, and skin tones can sometimes look a bit wonky. But overall this is a pleasant-looking image with good primary shades (though sometimes muted due to the dark), nice black levels, and a reasonably strong level of clarity.







Audio:

Passenger’s Dolby Atmos track is by far the best feature of this entire package, giving us a very robust and encompassing mix that doesn’t hold back at all. Right from the get-go, we’re privy to a whole host of ambient sounds that just encircle the listening position, ranging from the screech of tires during the opening scene, to the rat-a-tat-tat of rain falling near the end, or the individual crunching of bones as a tire rolls over a dead body (you’ll know what scene I mean if you see it). Bass is loud and aggressive, adding weight to the van chase, as well as the copious jump scares. And the score is actually quite nice. It’s not overly cooked, and it infuses some nice soft elements into the mix as well. Overheads are more than active, and there is a vast array of discrete and ambient tones bombarding the listener. Simply put, this is the highlight of the disc.










Extras:

•

Final Score: ​

Honestly, I liked a little bit of the film, and it is certainly competently shot. But at the end of the day, Passenger is so overdone and cliched that you can’t help but feel like you’ve seen this film a dozen times before. And you could name a dozen different films,s and you’d all be right as well. The Blu-ray looks good, sounds great, but is devoid of any extras, and the film is more than a bit stale. Simply put, this is a rental at BEST, with most people better off forgetting that it exists.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo
Directed by: Andre Ovredal
Written by: Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French, Spanish, German DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Spanish, Turkish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: R
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 8th, 2026

Recommendation: Meh

 

[Asere]

Meh? I really enjoyed this one lol.

 

[Michael Scott]

Meh? I really enjoyed this one lol.

sorry, usually our tastes align, but I felt it was so cliche that I was bored spitless the whole time.