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Daily Record
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
MOVIE REVIEW: We head towards the edge with mystery-thriller 'Drop'
Several suspects served up on menu during first date from hell. Having helmed the Happy Death Day flicks and Freaky, Christopher Landon has built up a strong reputation for comedy-horror. With Drop he veers into mystery-thriller territory as widowed mum Violet (Meghann Fahy) is bombarded with anonymous threatening messages on her phone during her first date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar). The whodunnit element is effectively played out in Jillian Jacobs' and Chris Roach's script as several potential suspects fill the luxurious restaurant. Violet is literally and figuratively dangling over the edge with an evil blackmailer manipulating her every move while she looks out on a colossal drop from the window at her table. Landon jazzes up his shooting style with swooping shots, close-ups on faces and key objects and on-screen text sharing the messages Violet is receiving. Fahy, a relative unknown beyond her turn in TV's The White Lotus, is wonderful as the under intense pressure, out to do the right thing lead. Her powerful back story lends her character vulnerability and an understandable lack of trust in others. Sklenar is charm personified; the guy is so likeable, caring and funny you're praying he isn't involved in Violet's torment. The supporting characters all play their part in adding to the mystery while making for endearing or irritating possible suspects or allies. This is Landon's most serious movie thus far, although he does include some jokes, and Jeffery Self's first night on the job waiter Matt feels like he's been dropped in from a comedy flick. The amount of times Violet gets up from the table becomes ridiculous and you end up questioning why even a sweet guy like Henry wouldn't call it a night. Landon really goes for broke with a wild ending that increases the element of danger and it works as a resolution to the numerous tense face-to-face encounters where characters are often trying their best to say things with body language or avoid doing something terrible. Drop is Landon's most mature outing to date and its Hitchcockian trappings mix well with modern technology and attitudes. ●
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Where to Watch ‘Drop': Is Christopher Landon's New Movie Streaming?
If you were to imagine the worst possible first date ever, would it include being blackmailed into killing your date under the threat of your son being murdered? We'd really hope not. But such is the case for Meghann Fahy in the new movie 'Drop.' In it, she plays a single mom headed out on her first date in years. While there, she begins receiving mysterious messages from an unknown numbers, escalating in how menacing they are. Filmmaker Christopher Landon is the writer-director of the film, following 'We Have a Ghost' and hits like 'Freaky,' 'Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones' and the 'Happy Death Day' films. Here's what you need to know. 'Drop' released nationwide on Friday, April 11, 2025. It is not. For now, you can only catch 'Drop' in theaters. It is a Universal film though, meaning it'll most likely head to Peacock when it comes time for its streaming release. We'll keep you posted on when that'll be. For now, you can find tickets here. Like we mentioned, 'Drop' really shows the first date from hell. While out for dinner with a very charming man (Brandon Sklenar), Violet (Fahy) starts receiving instructions to kill him, or else her son at home with a babysitter will be murdered. She's not allowed to be caught, nor is she allowed to tip anyone off in an effort to get help. What follows is a truly terrible evening, in which Violet tries to ensure everyone gets out alive. Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson and Ed Weeks star in the film alongside Fahy and Sklenar. The post Where to Watch 'Drop': Is Christopher Landon's New Movie Streaming? appeared first on TheWrap.
Los Angeles Times
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The silly techno-thriller ‘Drop' isn't quite Hitchcock. Call it ‘Strangers on a Text Chain'
'Drop,' the latest sitcom-y slasher by director Christopher Landon ('Happy Death Day,' 'Freaky') is an overzealous techno-thriller about a blind date that gets deadly by dessert. Violet (Meghann Fahy), a single mom and a domestic violence survivor, is nervously meeting her online match, Henry (Brandon Sklenar), at an upscale Chicago restaurant on top of a skyscraper. Her stress multiplies when an unknown stranger pesters her with secret air-dropped phone messages, anonymous texts that can only be sent within a 50-foot range. Someone nearby is sending Violet a serious threat: Flirt with Henry or they'll murder her son. The contained setup is clever in an Alfred Hitchcock-meets-ChatGPT kind of way. The plot is silly and the climax is at once too fast, too slow and too ludicrous. Really, there are too many things on the menu. Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach's script is variously a romantic comedy, a send-up of fine dining and a lens into abusive relationships. It also serves a lot of red herrings. Things open poorly with a scene of Violet getting battered by her ex, Blake (Michael Shea). The way the physical assault is shot is just awful, miserable stuff. A kick to her ribs reverberates across the theater. Later, Violet is hurled across a table and the camera comes with her, skidding down to the floor. There's an idea in here about resilience. Mostly, it's a sour note. Briefly, 'Drop' plays like a TV drama, too, as it establishes Violet's career as a virtual therapist and introduces her son, Toby (Jacob Robinson, a 6-year-old Irish TikTok star), and her quirky sister Jen (Violett Beane), who breezes into offer wardrobe advice and some needed comic relief. Jen puts Violet in a dynamite red-velvet tuxedo jumpsuit that will send some fashionistas scurrying out of the movie and into the mall. The tone changes again when Violet arrives at Palate, the wanly named restaurant where most of the action takes place. (For my money, the whole thing should have been set here — every scene that isn't is a groaner.) Once Violet tiptoes through Palate's disorienting entrance, she discovers a boozy adult oasis that's posh and tasteful and yet somehow unctuously personality-free. Kudos to the production designer Susie Cullen for nailing a decor I can only describe as Mixology Theme Park. We'll come to know Palate's many corners while Violet's bad date plays out, roughly in real time. There's the bathroom where she ducks to furiously text the killer out of Henry's sight, the slatted walls that frame her like a cage, the lounge where the bartender (Gabrielle Ryan Spring) pours liquid courage, and the piano where a tipsy and obnoxious musician (Ed Weeks) tinkles the ivories to get her attention. ' 'Baby Shark,' ' she requests, hoping he'll leave her alone. The best scenes, however, take place at the dinner table where Henry wonders why she's sabotaging their meet-up. The chatty waiter (Jeffery Self, hilarious) natters on about the candied ginger in the duck salad while Violet stares helplessly at security footage of a masked man in her house. Honestly, I barely gave a caramelized fig about wee Toby being held hostage. I just enjoyed the date, particularly the agitation in Fahy's empathetic face that gets misinterpreted as romantic desperation. With her glassy blue eyes and her nose flushed beet-red, Fahy, charming in her first lead role, is so vibrato with stress that it took a beat to recognize her from her breakout performance in 'White Lotus' as the second season's blithe, wealthy wife who prefers shopping to therapy. Here, her character even is a therapist, not that that ever factors into the script. Like most people nowadays, Violet and Henry claim to be ambivalent about modern technology, even as a dating app has brought them together. 'Drop' is a terrific advertisement for leaving your smart phone at home. Whether in Violet's hand or buzzing on the table, it sabotages her ability to converse; it's an exaggeration of how a tool intended to connect people wedges them apart. Even when Violet and Henry do connect, they're often talking about things they've seen on their phones. (Badly lit erotic pics, for one.) They're stuck in a simulacrum of intimacy. The tech-savvy villain is sitting somewhere close enough to see everything Violet does. Plus there are digital eyes everywhere. Thankfully, we don't spend that much time staring at her phone. The harassing messages are slapped onscreen in big, ridiculous lettering — 'Your phone is cloned,' 'Your son will die,' plus a reference to Billy Joel. So far I've yet to see any movie figure out how to integrate the dull activity of staring at a small black rectangle into something worthy of the screen. Landon's approach looks a bit too much like a billboard or a meme, but I think he's on the right track to be trying something expressionistic that circles back around to silent-movie aesthetics. If you think this looks cool, you should immediately watch F.W. Murnau's 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans,' a 1927 tear-jerker about another killer date where where the on-screen text 'Couldn't she get drowned?' sinks into a murky lake. One aggravating visual tic is that most of the male characters are photocopies of each other, a stack of handsome men with sandy brown goatees. I can't be the only person who initially mistook Henry and Blake as the same guy and assumed the brutal opening flashback was actually a flash-forward. For clarity's sake, couldn't one of them have shaved? Maybe — maybe — the misdirection is on purpose. I'm dubious. In another pivotal moment, Violet scribbles a message that seems to be a big deal according to the tense and pounding score. But even in a close-up, I couldn't make out what it read. Otherwise, the cinematography is fantastic with dramatic lighting and playful flourishes: slow-motion sparklers on a birthday cake, aerial shots of panna cotta, an introductory credits sequence in which wine and whiskey glasses explode in mid-air. There are scenes that spotlight our leads by fading the rest of the restaurant into the dark, and a dazzler where everything but Violet vanishes into inky blackness as the camera shoots straight up like a spooked squid. Maybe it heard Self's waiter hyping the coconut calamari. More likely this middling thriller just needs a decorative garnish.
Boston Globe
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
This thriller is bad to the last ‘Drop'
Handing her the pistol, the husband dares his wife to shoot him. There's a close up of the woman's bloodied, tear-stained face as she aims the gun. Suddenly, the screen goes black, and you hear that same woman's voice say 'let's go back a few minutes.' Advertisement This implies that 'Drop' is leading up to that vicious sequence. It is not. The entire film takes place several years later, but its repercussions will be offensively used in an absurd woman-in-peril plot that makes no sense whatsoever. The screenplay by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach is so implausible that it makes last year's 'Trap' look reasonable. If you recall, that Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Violett Beane as Jen in Drop, directed by Christopher Landon. (Universal Pictures) Universal Pictures As a result of her ordeal, the now-widowed Violet counsels women survivors of domestic violence. Her son, Toby (Jacob Robinson), has grown into a clever lad around 6 or 7 years old; he sends her sweet handwritten notes on a remote controlled vehicle. Violet also has a great relationship with her sister, Jen (Violett Beane). Jen is babysitting Toby because Violet has a date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar), a man she's been chatting with online for over three months. This will be their first meeting in person. After Jen picks out a sexy red number for her sister to wear, Violet takes an Uber to a fancy restaurant in a Chicago high rise. Advertisement This dining establishment is a jaw-dropping piece of set design, a ritzy extravaganza with a lighted tunnel of a hallway and floor to ceiling windows offering a glorious view of Chicago. The awesome bar, tended by the friendly mixologist Cara (Gabrielle Ryan), is a brightly lit invitation to get blitzed. I don't think we're talking Applebee's prices on the menu here, either. (from left) Henry (Brandon Sklenar) and Violet (Meghann Fahy) in Drop, directed by Christopher Landon. (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures) Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures Violet and Henry barely get to eat dinner. As soon as the couple sits down, Violet starts receiving sinister drops on her phone — a lot of them. These unsolicited messages sent via Bluetooth order her to complete a series of unexplained tasks, then murder Henry. To ensure that the dropper's demands are met, Violet is told to look at her home security cameras. She sees a masked man beating the hell out of Jen and threatening to kill Toby. If she calls the cops, Toby dies. If she fails to follow instructions, Toby dies. If she tells Henry anything about the drops, Toby dies. You get the idea. Director Christopher Landon (who made the far better 'Happy Death Day' and 'Freaky') tries to keep things visually interesting by posting the drop messages in large, dramatic letters on the screen while ominous music plays. He fails at that endeavor, but his swooping camerawork is occasionally inspiring. Advertisement Once Violet is engaged in the nefarious plot, 'Drop' becomes a mystery that also has to sustain a first date where one party is acting like a paranoid weirdo. The pressing question is: Who is sending these evil drops to Violet? Is it Matt (Jeffery Self), their overly friendly waiter? Is it the creepy, stern hostess (Sarah McCormack) who grows impatient with Violet's increasingly erratic behavior? (from left) Cara (Gabrielle Ryan) and Henry (Brandon Sklenar) in Drop, directed by Christopher Landon. (Universal Pictures) Universal Pictures Could it be the smarmy piano player who hit on Violet while she was waiting for Henry's late arrival? Or is it the awkward older man (Reed Diamond) who mistakes Violet for his blind date? Even Henry becomes a suspect, which is ludicrous because the only person on the phone at their table is Violet. But this movie has so little respect for your intelligence that I'd be surprised if it didn't try that angle. I figured out who the bad guy was before Henry even showed up, so all I felt was aggravation as the film twisted itself into preposterous plot pretzels before dropping the big reveal. Just wait until you find out what the villain's plan is. It's so convoluted, and so dependent upon coincidences, that it embarrasses the mindless-but-fun thriller genre. Meghann Fahy as Violet in Drop, directed by Christopher Landon. (Universal Pictures) Universal Pictures The absurd plot twists in 'Drop,' might be tolerable if the film weren't so distastefully tethered to domestic violence. A major point of the villain's manipulation of Violet is that she apparently killed her husband, so the cops will believe that she's able to kill again. Had the film not opened on such a horrific note, I might not have been so repulsed by its dopey shenanigans. In fact, those gruesome flashbacks weren't even necessary. There's a scene where Violet reveals her past to Henry, and the two swap stories about the events that traumatized them. Fahy and Sklenar are so good in this scene that I wanted more of them engaging with each other on their date. Instead, 'Drop' opts to go for the usual climactic cheap thrills. Unfortunately, the film doesn't earn enough goodwill to pay for them. Advertisement ★ DROP Directed by Christopher Landon. Written by Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach. Starring Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Gabrielle Ryan, Jeffery Self, Sarah McCormack, Reed Diamond. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 min. PG-13 (brutal violence, extreme plot stupidity) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
Forbes
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
80s Inspired ‘Hell Of A Summer' Slays Its Way Into The Slasher Revival
(Left to right) Finn Wolfhard, Fred Hechinger and Billy Bryk attend Neon's 'Hell Of A Summer' New ... More York Premiere on April 01, 2025. Movies such as the Scream reboot, Freaky, Heart Eyes, and now Hell of a Summer aren't just genre revivals; they're a clear message to Hollywood from a key demographic. "The mistake is chasing something that feels too contemporary. A movie takes so long to make and get out to an audience that if you are trying to have the most up-to-date slang and references and speak to the kids, you've missed the window by the time the movies come out. It's going to feel dated," explains Billy Bryk, who co-wrote and co-directed the coming-of-age horror comedy with Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard. "There are so many people making comedy sketches on TikTok and Instagram that you can consume comedy immediately, which speaks to what's happening right now in a way that, like movies can't. People must focus on letting movies be movies and not make movies feel like content or memes. Make more movies that may feel less zeitgeisty and more timeless." The pair of cinephiles, who also star in the Hell of a Summer, which will exclusively be in theaters on Friday, April 3, 2025, were on a clear mission right out of the gate. "We wanted to reintroduce the blend of genres and recontextualize it for a contemporary audience," Wolfhard explains. "We're in a weird place not only in the world but also in the film industry. It has felt like a transitional period for a few years, and a lot of that also has to do with many big film companies who make amazing movies but have so much money they don't know what to do with it. What used to happen in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was that a studio wouldn't make two $100 million movies; they would make twenty $10 million movies, and you would have these smaller films that could really breathe and had their own sort of time." Inspired by a blend of coming-of-age, horror, and comedy films, Hell of a Summer follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg, played by Thelma and The White Lotus' Fred Hechinger. He arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is feeling out of touch with his teenage co-workers. However, what he doesn't know is that a masked killer is lurking in the campgrounds, picking counselors off one by one. That was a eureka moment for 25-year-old Hechinger. Hot property in Hollywood right now, the actor, who is also one of the film's producers, starred in five films in 2024 alone including Gladiator II. "Something that was very personal in making this was the feeling of being slightly old for the first time, which isn't to say you're old in the outside world, but it's the first time in your life that you are too old for something" he muses. "If you think of life as just like continually coming of age to different experiences, this felt like one of those formative coming of age moments where the place you love the best you have to move on from. You have to leave and take that risk and enter the next chapter of your life, however unclear and scary that might seem." All three of them are in their early to mid-20s bonded immediately after their first meeting. "We sat down with Fred, and what was supposed to be a 40-minute tea turned into a four-and-a-half hour discussion about filmmaking and our lives and influences, and immediately afterward we were like, 'We have to push to get Fred'" Ghostbusters: Afterlife's Byrk recalls. "He was coming off The White Lotus. Everybody wanted to work with him, and we got him for the month we needed him. We moved our schedule around a little bit to make it happen." Hechinger adds, 'What was so amazing was we realized that we shared hundreds of references, and they ran the gamut. At first, we were talking about horror movies from the 70s and 80s; then we were talking about coming-of-age comedies, and then YouTube videos like Jake and Amir that we realized meant a lot to all of us. It was something that we watched religiously growing up and shaped our sense of humor, our sense of rhythm, and editing. It was really inspiring to take these vastly different references and put them all together. We were really interested in and inspired by that mix of timelessness and the contemporary.' "Finn and Billy are so sharp and smart. I love how they played to their strengths. If you're making your first film, rather than trying to put in a million locations and getting bogged down in all that transport, travel, and losing all your budget on those factors, I felt that because of their experience acting in movies, they knew that they could focus on the priorities they cared about. They asked, 'What is a location where we can really get into these character dynamics in the most focused and intelligent way possible?' The answer was a summer camp, so the fact that it all took place in one place makes it easier. In a practical sense, if it was raining and we planned to shoot a scene out on the campground, we could quickly jump inside one of the cabins and film a different scene." (Left to Right)Abby Quinn, Finn Wolfhard, Krista Nazaire, and Fred Hechinger in 'Hell of a Summer.' The trio's influences for Hell of a Summer include filmmakers such as The Thing director John Carpenter, who recently received a long-overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Superbad's Greg Mottola, and Wes Anderson. They and the film's distributor, Neon, have even tried to work the latter into the grassroots marketing campaign. "It was really important to us to build a more homegrown press tour. We wanted to make sure to hit schools and talk to young filmmakers and young people. It's important to me to pull back the curtain as much as you can," Hechinger says. "Billy, Finn, and I all love the movie Rushmore, and it made us so happy that we got to take a bus across the country with the name of the movie on it, which is a tip of the cap to the Rushmore bus." "It has been really fun that we've been able to go to schools and talk about how we made the movie, meet film students and young people that are already making movies or are thinking about making movies and continue to want to make more. I'm thrilled that we're getting to do it in this old-school way." Audiences first got a taste of Hell of a Summer when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 2023. Even though the film's release feels perfectly timed, with Hechinger red hot and the final Stranger Things season coming soon, was Wolfhard worried it might not hit theaters? "Yeah. That is not a stretch to think at all," the actor confirms. "There was a long period of time of waiting and hearing back from various places, getting feedback, then waiting some more, and then the strikes and all this weird stuff happening. I feel like it's the right time for this movie to come out, so the wait was worth it, but it was stressful." "You don't know with these things. It felt like writing the scripts was going to be a big challenge, but we did it. Getting it financed would be a big challenge, but we did that, and then we thought making would be a big challenge. After all that, the film still has to come out. We're so grateful, and Neon has been incredible. They're such an incredible company, and we're such fans. It's a dream place for this film to land. The fact that they're committing to a wide theatrical release for Hell of a Summer is massive for us because we grew up watching these types of movies in theaters. We believe it so important for audiences to see them there."
