Drop
The blind date from hell is given a pulse-pounding revamp in Christopher Landon’s ingenious thrill-ride.
Blind panic: Brandon Sklenar and Meghann Fahy.
Image courtesy of Universal Studios.
It’s just a horror film. But it’s a good one. In fact, it’s the best example of its kind to hit the multiplex in aeons, from a director who knows how to play the genre, tweaking the tropes to delirious effect. Christopher Landon, who brought us Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, Freaky and We Have a Ghost, raises his own bar with a plot braided as densely as cable knitwear.
It's a first date from hell, but not for reasons that either participant had anticipated. He’s late, she’s nervous, but there’s an immediate connection between Henry (Brandon Sklenar, dreamy) and Violet (Meghann Fahy, gorgeous) and the dining ambience is seductive, with the best (and giddiest) view in Chicago. The waiter is an embarrassment – it’s his first night, too, and he thinks he’s a comedian (he’s studying at Second City) – but everything would appear to be going like a dream. The bartender (Gabrielle Ryan) is a poppet and the cuisine looks to die for, if anybody can get to eat it. Violet Gates (Fahy), the prettiest therapist in the Windy City, hasn’t been on a date for five years, since an abusive marriage ended in tragedy. Henry Campbell (Sklenar) is a top photographer working for the mayor and is immediately drawn to Violet’s openness and sincerity. Meanwhile, Violet’s sister Jen (Violett Beane) is back home babysitting Violet’s five-year-old son, Toby.
Things are going swimmingly until Violet gets a pop-up on her phone called digiDrop, which seems to know more about her than is judicious. Sending her increasingly threatening messages, the app reveals that it has tapped into her home CCTV and shows a masked intruder with a gun instructed to kill her son and sister unless she does what she is told. She is not to contact the police, nor to alert her date, and her every move appears to be monitored – suggesting that the perpetrator can see her from a close distance. But glancing round, Violet notices that half the other customers are on their phones. Now she is instructed to kill her date – or her son and sister will be terminated forthwith…
As high concepts go, it’s a doozy, but we suspect that the scriptwriters Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach can’t keep spinning the plates without at least one drop. Except that they pull off the impossible. Furthermore, Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar keep us caring and believing, even as Violet’s mounting hysteria is hard to hide (and she must hide it at all costs). This is Speed, but set in a restaurant, and the accelerating plot can but crash into Henry Campbell should Violet choose to let it. At times the suspense is almost unbearable as Violet attempts to juggle the demands of her assailant, the concerns of her date and the possibility of a way out of her nightmare. So long as one doesn’t question the rather elaborate means to the killer’s end, the ride is a heart-racing, enormously satisfying one.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Reed Diamond, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self, Jacob Robinson, Gabrielle Ryan, Ed Weeks, Travis Nelson, Fiona Browne.
Dir Christopher Landon, Pro Michael Bay, Jason Blum, Brad Fuller, Cameron Fuller and Sam Lerner, Screenplay Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, Ph Marc Spicer, Pro Des Susie Cullen, Ed Ben Baudhuin, Music Bear McCreary, Costumes Gwen Jeffares Hourie.
Blumhouse Productions/Platinum Dunes/Wild Atlantic Pictures-Universal Pictures.
95 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 11 April 2025. Cert. 15.
