Posted by Companion; 2025; Written & directed by Drew Hancock; Starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Rubert Friend, Harvey Guillen; New Line; 1h37m; R; Theatrically released January 31.
It’s a scene familiar to any rom-com: a perfectly coifed young woman shops at a stylized grocery store, where she meets a young man who spills a display of oranges in the shock of laying eyes on her. They meet. It’s cute. Or is it? The scene immediately registers as one from a parody or pastiche of the genre convention. “The two most happy days of my life were the day I met Josh,” Iris, our shopper, states (I might be paraphrasing) in voiceover, “and the day I killed him.”
Wait, what?
With this pointed opening, Companion, the first feature by writer-director Drew Hancock, immediately sets the audience up for a darkly comic, highly entertaining, crowd-pleasing ride of a flick. It’s also very much a horror film, horror-comedy of course, but it is, nonetheless, with the offness of the opening scene and the amount of blood spillage later. As the spoiler-filled (and thus avoid please) advertising oft-states, Companion is produced, and was almost directed, by Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger; this pushed connection should give an indication of the shifts of the film (though temper your expectations, not to that film’s extremes).
The offness pervades as Hancock guides us through the setup. Opening couple Iris (Sophie Thatcher; Prospect, Heretic) and Josh (Jack Quaid; Scream V, Star Trek: Lower Decks) are venturing deep into the woods for a secluded weekend getaway with other couples: Eli (Harvey Guillen, What We Do in the Shadows TV) and himbo Patrick (Lukas Cage; Smile 2) & catty Cat (Megan Suri; It Lives Inside, Never Have I Ever) and rich scummy Russian Sergey (Rupert Friend; Death of Stalin, Obi-Wan).
It’s clear something is off. Everyone treats Iris strangely, although she seems like a perfectly normal woman. Of course, Josh tells her it’s all okay- she’s imagining things (cough).
It’s not long before Iris is covered in blood and handcuffed to a chair. I won’t tell you whose blood it is or why as you can come up with any number of structures to this scenario.
Before you can say The Loved Ones, Companion shifts into a twisting tale of power, gaslighting, relationships, and hard truths. It’s a wildly entertaining cat-and-mouse, fighting-back, fast-moving Most Dangerous Game. It takes off at a run and never truly stops for the remainder of the runtime. Sometimes this expedient storytelling lends to some moments going by too quickly when it would be more advantageous to have a longer bit to land, but I’ll take “these two beats could have more meat” than “oh god, get on with it!”
But Hancock builds a darkly funny script, gleefully delicious with each “hell yeah” moment. It’s immensely crowd-pleasing with its actions, so many wonderfully set-up and paid off (although some are painfully obvious).
And, yes, many of those pay-offs find more than just Iris covered in blood and/or indisposed. Companion knows what pain feels like and provides.
This is one where I wish I could hear the Kim Cackles(™). If you’ve seen a good one with fellow City of Geek contributor Kim Douthit, you know that laugh.
What Companion has to say, and some of what it does with said topics, is akin to last year’s very solid Blink Twice. But don’t dismiss it as another version of the Zoe Kravitz-directed flick, or even a more general audiences version of Alex Garland’s excellent Ex Machina. Companion is one of many of the modern era to speak to patriarchal social structures, gender and relationship expectations, and reversals, and what some people seem to think is owed to them. Some may say this plays a little on the nose and thin, but it worked for me. Sometimes we need bluntness; like last year’s best film The Substance (with Jack’s dad Dennis), subtlety won’t work as well as brick to the face.
The whole cast plays their roles with aplomb. Sophie Thatcher continues her upward trajectory. In ten years she’s started the excellent and underseen Exorcist TV show and the PNW-made Prospect, to the as-yet-not-seen-by-me Yellowjackets, squandered in Book of Boba Fett, and the star-making turn as a missionary in Heretic against Hugh Grant last year. She has heavy lifting of emotion and action with all that happens to Iris, and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here (especially in her run-through of genre works which includes The Boogeyman, which I haven’t seen). Jack Quaid, looking more and more like his dad, plays similar to his Scream V role, but it works. Rupert Friend makes a real attempt to steal the film from Thatcher. But that attempt is paid off by Lukas Gage’s Patrick. Gage is coming off a great 2024 with small but memorable roles as the Cat King in Dead Boy Detectives and the curse-provider Lewis in Smile 2.
Daniel Hancock’s Companion is an impressive and entertaining theatrical debut (after years of TV movie and show work). The “tell them everything” marketing might ruin a surprise or two for many, but the experience itself should still prove to be a bloody blast – with things to say under the gore. Sophie Thatcher continues to slay with more front-and-center roles in bigger projects. See Companion with a game crowd and your friend with the loudest laugh. Trust me.
A-
