Passenger - The Hitchhiker but Less Fun

My movie enjoyment rules are simple...interesting stories, complex characters that I can root for. This movie barely hit those. While this movie wasn't terrible, it wasn't that great either. It failed to live up to the expectations the trailer showed.

When I saw the trailer, it looked spooky. A dark entity follows a couple home while on the road. That was the crux of why I didn't love the movie.

The Set Up: The start of the movie was interesting. Two guys on the road pull over so one can pee in the woods. Something attacks, one dies while the other lives (for now). A young couple sells all of their earthly possessions and apartment to go forth and live the #vanlife. They decide to quit their jobs and live in a personally modified van. A concept I could never do and barely understand. It's probably why I wasn't rooting for them from the beginning. They're not even in their 30s and they're abandoning their lives, quitting their jobs to live on the road.

Maddie was in interior design and through throwaway backstory we discover that she was in foster care and bounced from home to home. Her boyfriend, Tyler, had a home, but it sounded like his parents didn't exactly get along and the happy home was only a facade. This was part of the internal conflict of the film as the supernatural conflict builds.

We jump forward six weeks and they're still on the road traveling the country. Tyler loves it. Maddie, while still enjoying it, is less enamored with the road compared to Tyler. The happy couple is headed to a hot springs for a special night, but Maddie wants some BBQ that's off the beaten path. He doesn't want to miss their reservation time, but he relents...set up, set up, set up...They hit traffic which later puts them onto the path of the demonic entity.

They dude that lived from the beginning, races past them and crashes. He dies and the entity starts to follow them. There are moments where the build up works. There were a few good jump scares that didn't feel trite. I can't stand when its all quiet then suddenly music is dialed to 11 and we see something pop up out of nowhere. The friend that slams their friend on the shoulder while in a tense moment. These are cheap jump scares and more of a startle than actual fear.

One that worked was while they were parked at a health club. To begin, Maddie was an idiot here. They're at a 24 hour health club so they can clean up and use the free wi-fi. He's downloading a movie for later, and instead of waiting in the lobby for him, even though things are slowly building up, she goes back to the van - alone. I can't root for you if you're going to keep making dumb choices.

They find someone who knows something about the entity, a woman Maddie met early in the movie. She gave her the rules: don't drive at night and if you are don't stop. The creature continues causing problems for the couple as they try to find a way to be released from its grip.

Another so-stupid moment came when they're headed to find an abandoned church. Tire blows and they have no choice to stop and fix it. Entity moves the bolts underneath the car. He crawls underneath a little more and finds another one near the back tire. Does he crawl out and go to the otherside like a smart person? No, he decides to crawl further under the van that's only suspended by a cheap jack.

The ending reminded me of an episode of Supernatural, "Route 666". In the episode, there was a racist truck spirit was killing people. Sam leads Dean to a church that was burned down in the 60s. The spirit tries to ram the Impala and disappears because it was hollowed ground.

How they won in this scenario worked for the scope of the movie. It was all about St. Christopher, Patron Saint of Travelers.

The last third, maybe quarter of the movie was enjoyable. The right ammount of tension was used and you wondered how it was going to end. That didn't make up for the rest of this slow burn of a movie. The idiotic choices made, while making sense for the scope of a movie, was frustrating. I was literally muttering under my breath for them to not do the thing they were doing. Because no one in thier situation would be doing the same thing.

This isn't a movie worth seeing in theaters. A movie night at home once it's streaming? Maybe. If you love horror movies, its worth at least a single watch. I will not be going out of my way to watch this again once its streaming. Maybe in a year or two and can't find anything else.

2/5...Make smarter people in horror. You can have them do the smart thing, but still unable to escape its grasp.