This horror movie runs out of gas before it reaches the intersection.

Important distinction: these crappy films are a decade apart from each other, but I still don’t want you readers to get confused. In 2016, we had the Chris Pratt-Jennifer Lawrence Sci-Fi vehicle “Passengers,” and this year, we have a road horror movie “Passenger.”

I basically knew “Passenger” was going to be another one of those run-of-the-mill horror movies where there’s some kind of crazy killer or supernatural demon trying to attack some young people. The trailer promises us that a young man will have a pit stop in the middle of the woods, hear a loud honk, go back in the car, find out that his friend is being attacked, and drives away seeing the same entity every half mile or so. It almost feels like he’s in some kind of time loop, and you know he’ll be next for the kill.

Because I was mostly maying attention to the first part of the trailer, I didn’t really anticipate that it would be driving movie with a “Nomadland” ambiance, as the young couple-Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell from “Voyagers” and “Foundation”) escape from the noisy New York City life to live somewhere in the countryside. They have been driving and sleeping in their van for about six weeks with a Bob Ross bobblehead doll as a sign of optimism, but one rainy night, they stop to try to aid the young man from the introduction (Miles Fowler), only to be soon threatened by that entity known as The Passenger (Jospeh Lopez).

Okay, okay, so we have the couple dealing with the demon who terrorizes them as they drive at night, but they didn’t receive a nomad’s (Melissa Leo) warning of not stopping for anyone before it’s too late. But I’m not really seeing anything daring or different about this genre. It almost reminds me about why I chose to skip “The Strangers: Chapter 2” and “Chapter 3,” because the first film was too dark to see and its story was too formulaic. Consider last week’s horror film “Obsession,” which was loud, creepy, and outrageously entertaining. I wasn’t sure how movie goers would take it, but I’m glad they enjoyed it, and they should see a horror movie like that and not this. I just wish that “Hokum” got more love from them.

There are some nice touches to “Passenger” that almost makes the film worth watching. Tyler has the van’s horn set to the tune of the “Hawaii 5.0” theme song, which Maddies doesn’t think would work, but it does. I also think that the nomad genre would work in a horror movie if it’s done with the right material, and I’m glad it reminded me about how good Frances McDormand was in “Nomadland,” which was not a horror movie, but still had a real sense of life to wake us up. And Scipio and Llobell both do some good work playing the couple, who at least try to avoid any horror movie tropes, especially when they have to buy a lot of Saint Christopher necklaces.

But I still think “Passenger” is too perfunctory to be scary, and too noisy for us to stay focused. It’s too familiar of both the supernatural and road trip genre and too easy and breezy to really challenge us and test our emotions. I was mostly thinking about how creepy Dan Aykroyd was in the opening scene from “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” when he made Albert Brooks stop so he can show him his scary face. I think you’re still better off seeing “Obsession” and “Hokum” until the next entertaining horror movie comes out.