Passenger Had Potential. The Characters Didn’t.

Passenger starts off with friends Lucas (Miles Fowler) and Daniel (Alan Trong) on a late-night road trip. After consuming a large beverage and promising he won’t have to use the bathroom, like a fibbing little kid, Lucas does, in fact, have to pee.

Naturally, Lucas does what any insane person who needs to pee in the dark middle of nowhere does, and ventures off into the woods to do so.

Assuming Daniel is honking the horn out of impatience, or perhaps annoyance, Lucas hurries back to the vehicle to find an empty car with all the doors and trunk open. What he doesn’t find is Daniel. At least not until Daniel comes, seemingly, falling right out of the sky SpongeBob style and crashes through the windshield.

Of course, the keys weren’t located in the ignition. They were located in Daniel’s possession, so after swiping the keys back, Lucas hops back in the vehicle and speeds off, where he continues to see the Passenger (Joseph Lopez) alongside the road before finally, the Passenger is actually in his passenger seat. Terrifying.

Now we meet Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) as they’re packing up their stable, steady lives for the uncertainty of the great outdoors, also known as van life. Because they seem to be terrible at both time management and follow-up, their hotel reservation falls through.

They attempt to crash for the night on a neighborhood street, getting engaged while there, before the neighborhood safety patrol shoos them along for trespassing.

Energized by love, they decide to just do an all-nighter after all, but Tyler is just plum tuckered out, so Maddie takes over the wheel. As she’s driving along, irresponsibly reaching down on the floor of the van to pick up her engagement ring as if it’s going to blow out of the window, a car blaring its horn goes racing past.

Suddenly awake, Tyler tells her to just let the car go, which she does, just before karma catches up to the driver, and our two lovebirds happen upon the vehicle crashed into a tree.

Of course they stop, just in time to witness Lucas attempt to crawl out of the car before being yanked back in. Being nosey, this is when the Passenger attaches himself to their vehicle, marking it with three bear claw-like scratches on the side that they discover the next morning.

They get to a van meetup, and while Tyler is fangirling over his van life idol, Maddie is hobnobbing with others — in particular, Diana (Melissa Leo). Diana basically tells her don’t touch nothing, don’t look at nothing, don’t ask for nothing, and definitely don’t stop on dark roads in the middle of the night. Too late. While Maddie silently realizes she’s dealing with the consequences of her actions of being unprepared to be a van lifer, she notices the three scratches on the bulletin board.

Later that night, Maddie finishes up her shower at the local Planet Fitness-looking gym and moseys outside. Alone. She spots some individuals minding their business in their own vehicle and suspects they’re up to something nefarious. So busy looking behind her at them, with her earbuds in no less, she nearly gets run over by a passing truck. If she was so scared, why did she walk to her van in the middle of the night?

Thinking the randos from the vehicle are out to get her, she completely misses the back door of the van opening before suddenly the Passenger is in the vehicle. He attempts to strangle her when her St. Christopher medallion touches his skin and scares him off.

Of course, having witnessed none of the paranormal activity that’s been going on, Tyler just looks at Maddie like she’s crazy when she tells him about what happened.

After a stop at a bookstore, Maddie finally decides to read up on what she’s gotten herself into with nomadic living. After reading a haunted highways book, learning about various markings and the Passenger, Maddie comes bouncing out all smiles with Tyler, only to discover the three slashes are back.

They continue off to the dark and empty woods yet again for an outdoor theatre Tyler surprises her with, which is lovely — until they break into a heated discussion where she reveals she’s not really into the whole van life thing and wants to go back to living a “normal” life. She assures him she wants him to continue driving into his dreams (whatever that means) when the creepy old guy he’s been completely unaware of the whole time appears in their movie screen, pushing through like Pennywise in IT.

They eventually escape into the van before realizing they left the keys outside.

Naturally, when Tyler jumps out to find them, the Passenger is shaking them off in the distance. Whomp whomp.

Tyler manages to get the keys, and they make it to a diner. It’s here Maddie has the bright idea to find Diana and bring their problems to her. I guess in search of more information that they’ll continue to ignore.

On their late-night drive of defiance, they encounter the Passenger. Who would have guessed. This time, he pulls Maddie from the van. Looking very much like Rumpelstiltskin from Once Upon a Time, the Passenger forces Maddie to stay in place while Tyler barrels toward her. No worries. Tyler’s got excellent reflexes and brakes just in time.

He scoops her up, and they make their way to Diana in Flagstaff. Of course, this leads to her death. No good deed goes unpunished.

Before she dies, Diana tells Tyler and Maddie about the church of Saint Christopher, which they somehow make it to despite a near-fatal flat tire incident that crushes Tyler’s leg, and Maddie falling asleep at the wheel for what appears to be several hours.

For the Passenger’s final appearance, he flings Tyler from the vehicle, which still doesn’t stop Maddie from driving through the church and impaling him on the statue of Saint Christopher, which kills him.

---

The Verdict

I found myself more frustrated with literally every main character’s action more than anything. With every decision, there was the obvious choice, then there was the actual choice they made. It also frustrated me that despite Maddie and Tyler getting engaged, it was almost like they didn’t even know each other, let alone really even like each other. Love? Absolutely not. Because if Tyler loved Maddie, why on earth would he let her go out into that gym parking lot alone when she was clearly spooked about something all day? Why didn’t he have more belief in what she was telling him? Granted, she wasn’t really providing him with an overwhelming amount of information, but the little bit she did share, he dismissed.

I also found myself confused as to why Diana was attacked if she didn’t have the three slashes on her vehicle, and the Passenger had already attached himself to Maddie and Tyler. She didn’t stop and exit her vehicle, giving space to let him in — or maybe I just misunderstood the rules.

Either way, I felt like it could have been really good, but I found it to only be decent.