RIYADH: A deserted mountain road, a stranded stranger, and a simple act of kindness that turns into a nightmare. These are the ingredients of “Traveler’s Hell,” an upcoming psychological thriller based on Osamah Almuslim’s bestselling novel and directed by award-winning Saudi filmmaker Hana Alomair.
Produced by MBC Studios and filmed entirely in the Kingdom, the adaptation stars Adwa Bader, Basil Alsole, Mohammed Ali, Shojaat Nashat and Aziz Gharbawi.
For Alomair, adapting a novel with a devoted fanbase meant balancing their expectations with the creative possibilities.
“The novel has an exceptionally large and devoted readership, and each reader has already developed a vivid, deeply personal world through their imagination,” Alomair told Arab News.
So rather than reproducing the novel’s fantasy elements exactly, she chose to use magical realism, grounding supernatural events in a believable world. “This allowed me to preserve the story’s sense of wonder while making its characters and their emotional journeys more accessible to audiences,” she explained.
The film, due in cinemas Nov. 19, follows a young woman driving alone at night who encounters a man stranded on a mountain road notorious for disappearances and deaths. Despite her unease, she offers him a ride to the nearest station. What begins as an act of kindness soon spirals into a series of terrifying events that challenge her understanding of reality.
