Written and directed by Drew Hancock, Companion is a rock-em sock-em Rom Com with a bigger body count than Wolf Man and more laugh-out-loud moments than an entire season of The Bear. The genre mash-up stars Jack Quaid (The Boys) and Sophie Thatcher (Heretic) as Josh & Iris, a young couple looking to spend a quite weekend with friends in a remote getaway. Unfortunately, their little relaxing vacay goes awry after the sudden death of their host and the group quickly scrambles into survival mode as they figure out what to do next. If you’ve already seen the full theatrical trailer, you know a little bit more than I’m letting on, but if you haven’t seen that trailer yet- Good.
We’re only one month into 2025 and we already have our first Impossible To Review Genre Film of The Year! It’s not that Companion has some sort of Shyamalanian twist halfway through, but what you will enjoy most about Companion is the ride it takes you on as a viewer. If you’re a fan of movies, and all you’ve seen about Companion is that brilliantly cut teaser, just know that you’re in for a good time. No need for further research. It’s a movie that subverts your expectations, has its own unique personality, and continually tries to top itself scene after scene. You may be familiar with rom coms, but not one this bloody. And you may have seen a handful of nightmare vacation movies, but not one this damn funny or clever.
“Companion is a clever, twisting tale that’s fresh and original, and (most importantly) fun.”
Jack Quaid’s Josh is a bad boyfriend you love to hate and a gattdamn goofball that’s easy to laugh at. He threads the needle perfectly between modern monster and loveable idiot, and Sophie Thatcher bounces off that “dual personality” perfectly. She’s a smitten nuclear family housewife when she needs to be small, and a resourceful Rambo-esque warrior when the chips are down. There is a section later in the film that suggest Thatcher’s Iris could become a truly unstoppable force but, sadly it never quite gets there. That restraint feels a little out of bounds from the rest of Companion‘s insatiable desire for raising its own stakes, but Hancock does a great job of building impossible to escape situations based on the rules and parameters that the story is bound to. Sometime the only way to get away with murder is…more murder!
Companion is a clever, twisting tale that’s fresh and original, and (most importantly) fun. Its closest comparison is easily Black Mirror (if Black Mirror was also a laugh out loud riot) but it’s impossible to pin this movie to one specific genre. If you were trying to sort Companion onto a shelf at Blockbuster Video it could happily sit in Sci-Fi, but you wouldn’t be wrong to put it in on the Comedy rack, or in the Thriller section. What makes Companion so much fun isn’t just that it’s a barrel of laughs (shoutout to Harry Guillen who always makes a side role a full course character) but that it wants to surprise you at every turn and keep you entertained. The cardinal sin of any movie is to be boring, and Companion is pure fun from its picturesque start to its bloody finish.
“Like an episode of Black Mirror, if Black Mirror was also a laugh out loud riot”
Produced by JD Lifshitz & Raphael Margules, the mad geniuses at BoulderLight Pictures who are responsible for some of the best genre-mashing horror flicks in recent memory, Companion absolutely earns its teaser trailer tag “From The Unhinged Creators of Barbarian“. Lifshitz & Margules are a dynamic duo solely interested in delivering films fans a rip-roaring good time at the movies. You can actually hear all about their process and why they think that movies should be anything but boring on this week’s episode of the Nightmare on Film Street Podcast.
Drew Hancock’s freaky & funny genre-bender Companion hits theatres Jan 31 and we can’t recommend it enough. It’s our first favorite horror movie of the year and we’re dying to hear your thoughts on this The Notebook meets There’s Something About Mary meets The Terminator mash-up in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord. Social Media is a cesspool. Discord is where all the cool kids are hanging out.
Hot at the Shop:
