by Shane Conto, Staff Writer
Who doesn’t enjoy a nice drive through the country? Maybe on a nice Sunday. The sun is shining. The sky is clear. Nature is in all of its glory. It might be even nicer if you can find a good old-fashioned driver to take you on this journey. Sometimes it is nice to just be a passenger along for the ride. Unfortunately, this road trip horror flick has a different type of passenger entirely. The Passenger offers up a malevolent one of the parasite variety.
What is the story that writer Luis Sanchez-Polack offers up in his latest screenplay for this new Spanish horror flick? Blasco (Ramiro Blas), the main character, is your standard former bullfighter-turned-driver with his old school van named Van-nessa. You know… standard stuff. He takes on a few clients, including a woman who is hiding her own suffering and a mother-daughter combo who is intending on dropping the daughter off at her father’s. This ride seems good and all until an alien entity begins infecting these unknowing travelers causing, quite a bit of suffering and mayhem.
How does Sanchez-Polack get his audience to connect with this simple, but crazy story? There is a surprising amount of time in this 90-minute flick dedicated to developing our four characters. From the start, Blasco and the young daughter Marta (Paula Gallego) have some great chemistry. Blasco is your lovable ignorant man who makes misogynistic comments to the women in his van and loves his traditional Spanish music. Marta is a young woman who is too cool, but soon connects with Blasco over music and the fact that they each have scarring on their faces. The two women (stuck in the back behind a glass screen) are set up initially as flat and stereotypical mad women, but soon show layers. By the time things go sideways, you just might care about all four of them, which makes it that much more emotional when things go wrong.
The pair of Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez share the reins directing this flick, but how do they bring the most out of this simple concept full of potential? This film has a distinct dark campiness to it. Think Sam Raimi horror but with a Spanish tinge. There are plenty of darkly funny moments, but they do not get in the way of the grotesque and graphic body horror that fills out the film. You will not be disappointed with the laughs you get, and a fun, scary experience. The film moves along at a brisk pace while offering up some fun and cheesy effects for these creatures.
But does The Passenger offer up nothing but wins? Not quite. There are moments in the late second act and early third act that feel forced in to stretch out the run time and offer up more scares. Those scares feel effective, but they do not quite feel necessary for the overall narrative as they don’t offer anything new. The ending of the film might leave some audience members disappointed and feeling a bit unfulfilled. Your appreciation of bleakness might gauge who you feel once those credits start rolling.
But is The Passenger a must see in the ever-growing sea of horror films available? There is surprising depth to characters that make this journey feel more meaningful. The scares and gore are fun and effective. The filmmaking brings a retro feel with some bold camerawork and Dutch angles aplenty. This is a fun film that overcomes a few shortcomings to offer up an enjoyable ride worth being a passenger on.
Grade: 7/10
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