Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to Movie Deputy Reviews, where I promised today we would be talking about passengers. And guess what we're talking about now. I've had some questions when I've run into people in real life. Not so much on people messaging me, but people are going, why did they remake the. The sci fi one? And I'm like, no, not passengers. Passenger. And this isn't the passenger, it's just Passenger.
[00:00:26] That probably seems confusing. There's a lot of movies with very similar titles, but this one has to do with the whole Be Afraid of the dark type deal a little bit, kind of.
[00:00:41] It has to do with that and it has to do with so much more. This one, the. If you've ever taken a road trip, if you've ever kind of gotten the EBGB's that you're being followed, if you've ever seen something traumatic happen on a road trip, there are parts of this movie that you will be able to relate with. And whether or not it's entertaining to you is up for debate.
[00:01:05] One of the things with this movie is it kind of tries to get you right off the bat with the poster. It says 130 million people take road trips every year.
[00:01:14] Over 15,000 of them are never seen again.
[00:01:18] Now, that is for numerous different reasons, but this definitely plays into that.
[00:01:23] Now, before we get too far into this at all, you know me, no spoilers ever. The movie does start with a the prayer of St Christopher or part of the prayer of St Christopher because he is the patron saint of travelers.
[00:01:37] Why does that matter?
[00:01:39] Well, it's trying to think how to word it without giving too much away. There is something having to do with a St. Christopher medal that comes into play here. And there's also a few other things with St. Christopher that kind of come into play. But, yeah, we are going to be getting a little bit more into that. But before we get too far into this, I want to share with you the trailer. And trust me, I will be stopping it at a few points on that.
[00:02:09] And again, it's just saying, last year over 130 million people took road trips. Make it quick, dude. Give me one minute here. We got just a couple buddies out road tripping and one has to take a whiz. So they stop and he barely has a chance to get going with anything. And his buddy starts honking at him and he's like going, oh, come on, buddy, come on.
[00:02:35] No.
[00:02:36] He gets back to the car and finds, where's his buddy Daniel?
[00:02:51] Now, at a point like this in A trailer. You always know it's building up for some sort of jump scare.
[00:03:01] There it is.
[00:03:30] Now, for those who are on our podcast part and don't can't see the video. He's driving and he passes this guy standing on the side of the road, and he drives a little bit further, and the same guy is standing alongside of the road and he's kind of going like, what in the heck is going on?
[00:03:44] And is building up to that. Just that eerie creepiness.
[00:03:52] And he passes the guy a third time, and then the guy's in his passenger seat.
[00:03:59] I saw these on the car last night.
[00:04:03] Three scratches just like that. You didn't stop, did you?
[00:04:11] It's something unholy.
[00:04:18] Something's following us.
[00:04:23] Save Crucifer.
[00:04:25] Lead to that.
[00:04:27] All my child.
[00:04:29] Give us your warning signs.
[00:04:32] In danger is this.
[00:04:45] No one outruns the passenger.
[00:05:05] So that is what you have to look forward to with passenger. I will say a lot of the best parts of the movie are in the trailer.
[00:05:13] Now, what does the one have to do with the other? Because you see the two buddies in their car, and then you see Tyler and Maddie, the two that are in the van, and they've basically packed up their entire lives and they are going to be nomading. They're going to be living in their basic, basically their camper van, like a lot of people do, rving across the country.
[00:05:33] And so they're just starting new and they're going to be doing this trek across just anywhere they want to go.
[00:05:40] But right as they first get going, they see this horrific car accident. So they stop to see if they can help.
[00:05:47] That's actually the worst thing that they could have done because they find themselves marked. You know me. No spoilers on that. But what does that mean?
[00:05:56] Well, it has to do with being able to read the signs. Now, I'm not going to give away what that means. You'd have to see the movie to watch it.
[00:06:05] But obviously this movie is getting a guilty rating.
[00:06:08] But so Tyler, Maddie, stopped to help these guys, and then so they're continuing on with their trip and these really creepy things keep happening. It's like the whole of, like, where they can go where they can't go. Things, the feeling that they're being followed, realizing that there's something after them, and they have to try to figure out how to escape, if they can escape.
[00:06:32] Because once you've been marked, you're kind of done for. But does that mean that that's the end of the story? No, there's a Lot more to it than that. Now is this for everybody? Absolutely not.
[00:06:45] If you saw something of like the Matthew Nichols movie that was out recently, it was kind of like the documentary type story. This feels almost like something that's being like self documented a little bit. Except it's not found footage.
[00:07:03] It's just very close up, very intimate in the relationships with them and other fellow nomads who are traveling.
[00:07:10] And the story behind the passenger and what, what exactly it is and where it starts and how to overcome it, if that's possible.
[00:07:23] They find out there is one safe place to go, but it is not exactly safe in the way you might think.
[00:07:31] So like I said, is this for everybody? Absolutely not. Are you looking for a Dayton movie where you're gonna have like the jump scares and you're just gonna be like all throughout the thing where it's just completely predictable. Like you can tell.
[00:07:50] I. I think it's funny that the trailer, half the trailer, focuses on these two guys and the whole thing and that's in like the first five minutes of the movie.
[00:07:59] The rest of it is all about Tyler and Maddie and their adventure.
[00:08:04] Where does that leave it, score wise?
[00:08:07] Well, there are so many of these just gotcha type stories that try to build up to something more than what they are.
[00:08:17] Does it have some jump scares? A few.
[00:08:20] Is the story strong enough to carry it between those jump scares?
[00:08:25] There's not much story to it.
[00:08:28] I mean, just to be honest, there's really not. It talks about that all of these millions of people take road trips every year and all these people are never seen again.
[00:08:37] But it never references anything like that in the movie. I mean, this passenger, there's two, two rules or whatever that they keep focusing on in the movie is that you don't drive at night and that you never, ever, ever stop.
[00:08:51] Well, that doesn't apply to like a lot of people, but it's honestly, if you're afraid of driving at night, if you don't do well driving at night, this movie might give you the EBGB's. Admittedly, I did enjoy the Bob Ross references.
[00:09:06] If you don't know who that is, look up PBS Bob Ross. It'll definitely put a smile on your face. But with Tyler, he is trying to escape the life he's always known. And with Maddie, she's trying to find the life she's always wanted and their journey together and it gets a little rocky along the way. There's honestly more story with their relationship than there is with the stuff about the passenger.
[00:09:34] What that Means for the story is debatable.
[00:09:38] Score wise. I came in with the passenger at a 4.25 out of 10 on the deputy scale. A 4 is watchable but forgettable. And most of this story is just meh.
[00:09:49] A five is decent story. Significant flaws, which that doesn't even begin to cover this, but it's much more on the forgettable thing. I was honestly debating mid threes, but there. There's a couple good jump scares and there's a little bit to this process.
[00:10:06] I do advise not eating while you're. While you're watching this movie because there's a couple particular scenes there.
[00:10:13] Okay. I'm listening to what's going on on the. I'm watching the movie. I'm listening to the. All the audio stuff on the movie. And you could just. In my brain, I'm just imagining these sound effects people behind the scenes, the ones that are adding sound effects to movies, because you just know the sound effect does not fit what's going on in the screen. So I'm just picturing these sound effects people behind the scenes. And honestly, that made me chuckle in a really, really weird way. I did ask people what they thought of this after the movie, and I do think the watchable but forgettable definitely fits that. Because two people, a couple that were together, they just kind of looked at each other and they're like, it was okay.
[00:10:54] It was literally that was about as enthusiastic as they could get. And there were a couple other people that admitted they had fallen asleep.
[00:11:03] It wasn't until the lights came on that that woke them up. So they don't really know how much of the movie that they missed because they couldn't stay awake long enough to enjoy it.
[00:11:12] And I hope that that helps a few people who might be debating going to see this. There's a lot of other movies to check out right now that honestly, if you really want to see this one, I would wait till it comes out on DVD Blu Ray. But that's also hoping that it would be memorable enough to watch. That's why I was debating threes. The threes, if you really must see this, wait for DVD Blu Ray.
[00:11:35] But like I said, there were just a few redeeming points in this. But again, you have to pay attention enough to get to them.
[00:11:42] Again, like, if you caught the trailer here with us though, that is honestly some of the highlights of the movie.
[00:11:49] And then just the rest of the story kind of fills in the rest. Is it for you? That's for you to decide. But as always, I promise. This is an adventure, so I thank you for coming along. If you haven't done so already, please click subscribe and turn on that little notification bell so you get the latest and the greatest Movie Deputy content. And as always, I'll be back soon. Bye.
