Review: Going off the grid in a van has its hazards in the half-scary 'Passenger'

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Do we really need reminding, when far from home, not to stop our vehicles in out-of-the-way areas on nights when nobody’s around and even the moon has chosen to hide? Nevertheless, stepping up to drive home this vital public message for four-wheeled wanderers is the new horror film “Passenger” from director André Øvredal (“The Last Voyage of the Demeter”).Had it heeded a more malevolent sensibility than an instinct to overexplain, it might have been more ruthlessly effective at yucking our yum for road trips.Stopping along the side of a road for a call of nature doesn’t turn out so well for the dudes in the prologue.

Especially when, after one of them is brutally murdered, the other tries to drive away and his battered Honda repeatedly passes the same eerie figure, whose raggedy appearance in the glare of headlights — did a dive bar in 1934 just let out? — does nothing to suggest he’s a friendly bystander.Who’s next? Our protagonists are beautiful young New York twosome Tyler (Jason Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell), who are about to become ex-New Yorkers, having shut down their urban lives for itinerant freedom in a burnt orange van.We sense that maybe this is his dream more than hers, but after he sweetly proposes, she starts warming to the romance of it all.

Besides, they’re totem-protected: a goofy little Bob Ross bobble head for the dash — “No mistakes, just happy accidents,” Tyler reminds Maddie of the TV painter’s mantra — and a St.Christopher medallion hanging from the rearview mirror.

Movies If you want big popcorn fare from the best directors in the blockbuster game (Spielberg, Nolan, Ridley Scott), it’s here, along with a number of promising indie swings.One night six weeks in, on a rain-slicked stretch of wooded two-lane, they’re nearly run off the road by that speeding Honda, which crashes ahead of them.Stopping out of concern...