The Passenger (2026)

A couple stops to help a man in need in the middle of the forest, only to be marked by a sinister supernatural entity.

Inundated with clichés.

Horror evolves. Or at least it should. Just look at what the genre has given us since last year (to name but a few):

• Exit 8 (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/exit-8-2025/
• Together (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/together-2025/
• Weapons (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/weapons-2025/
• Bring Her Back (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/bring-her-back-2025/
• Sinners (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/sinners-2025/
• Send Help (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/send-help-2025/
• It Ends (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/it-ends-2025/
• Undertone (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/undertone-2025/
• Obsession (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/obsession-2025/

Films attempting new structures, fresh symbolism, psychological experimentation, audiovisual risks, and unconventional storytelling. We cannot keep going backwards.

So when a major studio like Paramount Pictures releases a horror film that spends half its runtime feeling like an advertisement for a Mercedes campervan – and then for itself – there is something fundamentally wrong at the conceptual level.

But even that is not the real issue. The real issue is how aggressively formulaic The Passenger becomes:

• The paranormal entity can apparently do anything whenever the script requires it, creating endless narrative gimmicks.
• The film relies almost entirely on jump scares because it struggles to create fear through atmosphere, psychology, or suspense.
• Characters constantly explain what the audience is already seeing, as though viewers cannot interpret images themselves.
• Whatever remains unexplained conveniently already exists online as “expanded lore,” ensuring audiences can read detailed explanations in between.

You get the idea… And this is not about me attacking films. I wouldn’t. I haven’t. The point of my criticism is to examine strengths, weaknesses, and ultimately the filmmakers’ relationship with their audience. What are they trying to achieve? What do they believe audiences want? Worse – what do they think audiences will tolerate, fall for, or hopefully won’t get?

Because when independent and low-budget horror films repeatedly manage to create genuine suspense, psychological dread, and memorable imagery with fractions of the budget, major studios have absolutely no excuse for producing horror this disposable.

Which makes this all the more disappointing considering the director involved. André Øvredal has already contributed significantly to modern horror through films such as Trollhunter (2010) and especially The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016). Ironically, then, the greatest horror here may be the feeling that a talented filmmaker became trapped inside a machine more interested in algorithms, marketing, and manufactured reactions than actual fear.

And that, unfortunately, is becoming its own horror subgenre.