Passenger | Film Review

 

After witnessing an accident, a couple discover that they are being haunted by a demonic entity known as 'the passenger'.

The trailer for this film was so fantastic that I couldn't wait to see the whole movie. It gave little away, previewed the potential scares and really left you wanting more.

Unfortunately, the scenes in the trailer were the best part of the movie.

The first half of the trailer makes up maybe 10 minutes of the movie, and it was a really great opening. We were immediately invested, scared, and really interested in where it would go.

And then it just went downhill.

The pacing isn't great - it speeds up, then slows to a glacial pace, then speeds up too quickly at random moments, making it hard to maintain interest.

The scares are great, for the most part, but they begin to feel more important than the story itself. And part of that is because the story itself can be incoherent and messy, to the point where the only thing anchoring the story in a consistent way is the jump scares.

Horror movies come with some need to suspend your disbelief, and this one is worse for that than most; it never feels realistic. And the frustrating actions of the protagonist don't make that any easier.

The story massively loses its way after a while, and eventually it forgets what it was about in the first place, which is a shame because it had such a great start!

Overall, while I do think this would have been a fun cinema watch, the story isn't that great and doesn't work hard enough to keep the interest of the viewer. It had such a great start that the rest became a huge disappointment.

5/10