‘The Passenger’: Road Trip With Homicidal Alien Hitchhiker
03.06.2022 - 00:23
/ variety.com
Dennis Harvey Film CriticTraveling with strangers can be hard, but traveling with strangers and a murderous alien parasite proves considerably worse in “The Passenger.” This sharply executed, good-humored horror opus represents a promising first dual directorial effort for Fernando Gonzalez Gomez and Raul Cerezo, each of whom has a number of shorts under his belt. While not quite a slam-dunk, it’s more than skillful enough to please genre fans looking for a fun ride, and to raise expectations for their next collaboration (“Viejos,” aka “The Elderly,” another horror already in post).
Dark Star and Bloody Disgusting are releasing to limited U.S. theaters on June 3, with VOD and DVD release June 28.The requisite “first victims” prologue finds two English-speaking backpackers on a rural road having an alarming encounter with a ghoulish woman in a silver red-carpet dress.
Then we meet Blasco (Ramiro Blas), a middle-aged man who’s purportedly had past professional lives in the bullfighting and rock-band milieus. But now he’s living off the beloved if somewhat decrepit old camper van he calls “Nella” as a driver for hire.
His customers today are all women, which is a tad unfortunate, since Blasco is the kind of swaggering macho blowhard prone to say things like “Brute strength is a man’s job” as he grabs a passenger’s luggage. He’s already irked Mexican visitor Mariela (Cecilia Suarez), a nurse on a trip of some personal urgency, when their company expands with the addition of uptight upper-middle-class Lidia (Cristina Alcazar) and sulky teenage daughter Marta (Paula Gallego), who are immediately at each other’s throats.
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