MOVIE NEWS – The first full trailer for Passenger has arrived, and to mark the occasion, horror authority Bloody Disgusting published an exclusive interview with Norwegian director André Øvredal, the filmmaker behind The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Troll Hunter, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter. According to BD, Passenger looks set to be the scariest horror film of the year, and the director is certainly not in any rush to deny that.
The story follows a young couple who witness an accident during what begins as an innocent road trip. They make a grave mistake that seals their fate and unleashes supernatural forces.
One of the trailer’s most memorable moments is the appearance of Oscar winner Melissa Leo, best known for The Fighter. She plays the familiar doom-laden harbinger so often found in horror films, the one person who knows exactly what has been unleashed, and it is from her lips that the film’s key line is delivered: No one can escape Passenger.
In his interview with Bloody Disgusting, André Øvredal makes it clear that Passenger is the scariest film he has made so far. The screenplay is credited to Øvredal, Zachary Donohue, and TW Burgess, and the trio’s aim was to make sure the film would not rely only on scares, although there will naturally be plenty of those, but would also strike deeper psychological chords. The protagonists commit a sin, and demonic punishment follows immediately: their unbearable fear becomes a form of penance, the weight of which also presses down on the audience. To support that idea, the visual team uses dark, high-contrast imagery in which the car’s cramped interior creates a false sense of safety while the outside world grows ever more hostile and surreal.
(Passenger – in Hungarian cinemas: May 21, 2026.)
Source: UIP Dunafilm
