It’s easy to throw around a word like “formulaic” (you know I certainly have) but it’s harder to understand the nuance of it. “Formulaic,” doesn’t mean unoriginal, “familiar,” doesn’t mean predictable, and “popcorn,” never means bad. So I wield these words with intention as I describe André Øvredal’s haunted mobile-house story, a formulaic and familiar popcorn fright that is made extra-enjoyable with his firm grasp on crafting creative scares.

For his newest nightmare (known for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and the terrifying The Autopsy of Jane Doe), Øvredal directed T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donahue’s script about a haunting on the open road. Tyler and Maddie (Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell) are a young couple in love who’ve traded in their mundane jobs and Brooklyn apartment for the “van life.” Gussying up a vintage Mercedes van, they’ve rid themselves of most of their worldly belongings for the nomadic life of camping, driving, and a bevy of americana. Maddie is reluctant about this life without a secure space with four real walls, but she loves Tyler enough to let him live out his fantasy… for as long as she can stand it. But things go south (or whichever way they’re cruising along Route 66) quickly when the duo come across a mysterious car crash and a legend about a passenger and his mark of three slashes. Haunted, their van becomes a punishing place to lay their heads, and they must follow the hobo code to avoid torture at the hands of this demonic presence.

The pair are green in their nomadic lifestyle, and no amount of YouTube video preparation is enough to protect them, they’ll need the sage wisdom of the OG van-lifers as represented by a reluctant but helpful Melissa Leo as Diana. Learning to respect the road as an entity of its own with its own set of rules might be what saves the pair and gets them to a hot shower, food delivery, and brick instead of steel.

So like I said, pretty formulaic. A loving couple with some relationship strife happens upon an invasive entity and requires the wisdom of a sage older woman to try and break the curse. And all of it is an absolute road trip blast.

Øvredal is no slouch when it comes to crafting scares, and the director delivers some exceptional horror sequences here. From the lived-in cold open that’s reminiscent of Cloverfield to a phenomenal long parking lot sequence, he builds so much lasting tension that a jump scare is barely enough to vent out the amount of developed steam. Relocating a home to a moving vehicle allows for new external threats, plays with security cameras, rules about when and when you can’t move, and of course, so many parking spots. If you’ve ever begged for the family to just drive away from the haunted house (as once subverted in Sinister), you’ll be screaming about keys and tires when you resolve that driving away is to remain in their house.

Things like using headlights and projectors as a light source, dash cam footage, and sending the concept to a highway all make the scares fun and unique, even if the ghost design does not. The entity itself is pretty drab, and it’s at its best when it’s off screen doing the impossible. Rules and intentions are a bit difficult to track so the stakes are tricky to muster, and while lots of audience buy-in relies on Scipio’s charm, the pair isn’t the most enveloping with their horror performances. (Then theirs Leo’s thankless role which trades some time with her for a surprise fright).

So is Passenger a boundary breaking terror built on complex themes? Maybe not. It’s a formulaic and familiar popcorn horror movie filled to the brim with crafty scares and isn’t that such a beautiful thing?

Passenger hits theaters May 22, 2026