A sinister entity infects and takes possession of the people who encounter it, contorting them into demonic monsters of superhuman strength. It’s well-worn horror trope, combined in this case with a throwback it-came-from-the-skies sci-fi angle. Toss in some game performances from a committed cast, garish giallo-like lighting and framing and some slimy special effects, and conditions are set for a fun, little creature feature. If this is your desired destination, then The Passenger mostly delivers, even if the film would be much more memorable if directors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez were willing to venture off the beaten path.
Though it soon blows up into grotesque monster spectacle, complete with vomited goo and phallic tongues, the film’s first act derives its tension from personality clashes between a handful of strangers in a van. Rideshare driver Blasco (Ramiro Blas) claims to have lost vision in one eye from a bullfighting mishap, though it’s evident from the start his macho swagger may also mean he’s prone to tall tales. He immediately rubs patron Lidia (Cristina Alcázar) the wrong way when he pulls up to her home in a vintage van he affectionately refers to as Nessa (as in Vanessa), and it doesn’t help when he gawks at her teenage daughter, Marta (Paula Gallego), who is being sent to live with her dad after a divorce. Already along for the ride is a Mexican woman named Mariela (Cecilia Suárez), who connects with Lidia during the drive even as both women bristle and push back against Blasco’s overt misogyny—he’s the type of guy who claims that feminism is about revenge.
While this setup makes for a compelling bit of interpersonal drama, it ends up feeling simply discarded when the creature emerges. Blasco’s stubbornness leads him to bypass a tollway by taking some creepy backroad detour at night, but otherwise the driver’s misogyny doesn’t really factor into anything at all once the group discovers what appears to be a crash-landed vessel and a pulsating lifeform that shoots something into Marta’s finger. When the van mows down a pedestrian who was standing in the middle of the road, the women convince Blasco to drive the unconscious accident victim to a hospital, but once she’s loaded into the van all hell breaks loose.
Blasco’s initial low-grade flirtation with young Marta does eventually swerve into more avuncular affection, especially as the pair of them duel the Deadite-like ghouls that the parasitic alien possesses. Even before this, they find some camaraderie in their quick wits, mutual disdain for Lidia and in their respective facial injuries—in Marta’s case, burn scars from a car accident many years prior. But there’s still a seedy undercurrent to the Blasco-Marta dynamic that really just makes Blasco seem like a creep until he’s compelled to act like a hero. The filmmakers never justify the need for this aspect of his character, and in some ways, this almost feels like an endorsement of chauvinism. By stirring up sociopolitical issues but doing nothing with them, the film relies more heavily on its creature effects, as the storytelling becomes one-note and overly familiar. The Passenger hits the mark with its gore and space goo, and the film is stylishly rendered even if its storytelling is undercooked and characters are mildly problematic. But there’s little here that feels fresh.
Photo courtesy of Dark Star Pictures
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