André Ovredal, who has yet to fail us as horror fans, is returning with a new genre film, Passenger, which Paramount Pictures will release on May 29.
The studio used the release of this weekend’s Primate as a launch platform for the very first teaser trailer, which played out like a scene from the movie and is already gaining huge social media buzz.
Official plot details haven’t been revealed, but IMDb’s listing describes it as about a couple on “van life” who witness a horrific accident; afterward, they’re pursued by a demonic force that won’t let them escape.
Jeff Rauseo gives a pretty great breakdown of the teaser, which hit audiences with a handful of really solid jump scares before smashing them over the head with Primate.
Here’s a cleaned-up and paraphrased transcription:
[In the teaser, two friends are driving down a wooded road late at night. One of them gets out to pee, walks into the woods, and does his business, but when he comes back, the friend who was driving is gone. He starts looking around, terrified. Where did his friend go? He gets in the car, tries to figure it out, waits a few seconds, and then bang, something smashes into the windshield.
[He starts the car and takes off, but quickly realizes he is stuck in a strange loop. He drives past a hitchhiker on the side of the road, keeps going, and then they are there again. He keeps driving, they appear again, and then suddenly they are gone. He looks to his side, and right in his face is this passenger.
[The teaser cuts, but in just about 60 seconds, it is incredibly effective. There is no music, no score, just pure tension. It completely freaked people out in the theater, with audible screams and gasps during the jump scare. You know it is coming, but you do not know when, and there is something deeply unsettling about the entire teaser that gets under your skin.]
Dread Central has confirmed that this is a theater-exclusive trailer and the only way you’ll see it is ahead of Primate this weekend. Paramount has such an incredible slate of films set for 2026 us horror fans are going to be eating well.
Passenger stars Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys for Life, The Outpost, and Without Remorse), Lou Llobell, and Melissa Leo (The Fighter).
Ovredal became a horror name with his 2010 found footage Trollhunter and the classic The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016), and would go on to direct two criminally underrated horror films: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) and The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023).
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