PREMISE
A billionaire’s death sets off a chain of events for Iris and her friends during a weekend trip to his lakeside estate.
THE GOOD STUFF
SOPHIE THATCHER- Has Sophie Thatcher “broken out” yet? I mean, here she is leading this movie and all that, but why is she not a bigger star? We are on like the 3rd or 4th different horror movie that should have established her as at least one of the scream queens in this genre to date. And yet… like…
There are such a wide range of things to do for this character in this movie and Thatcher nails every single thing. This is a character whose intelligence can be literally raised and decreased at will, speaks multiple languages in a number of different scenarios, and generally carries every single scene because she’s the primary focus. Thatcher does this without effort. She’s a real star.
THE STAKES- I’m coming to the realization that the smaller the horror film is, the easier it is to simply have the world building make a lot of sense. This movie uses flashbacks to tell backstories and it does so in a bite-sized manner that actually covers all the important things at once. The stakes are gradually raised as the movie goes along, but not so much as to completely transform the story that was being told before. REFRESHING.
Lucas Gage and Harvey guillen– Gage is quietly building himself a very impressive resume. Between the White lotus, smile 2, American vandal, and the Fargo miniseries, he’s been hitting a lot of quiet home runs and this is no exception. I would say he has the biggest arc in the entire movie, and even though he’s not on screen as much as Thatcher, he probably has more to do then even she does as the main character. There’s an argument to be had that Gage has the best performance in this whole movie.
Harvey Guillen also has impressive stuff to do here. I say this endearingly….but he is the most annoying character in this film, and that’s not because of his performance. There is a way to tell the difference between an annoying character that’s just performed in a s***** way, and a character that’s annoying by design that helps the movie push itself forward – that’s what Guillen does.
The movie would be so much worse without these two performances.
THE BAD STUFF
JACK QUAID- It’s not that I don’t like Jack Quaid. He’s fine here. But I guess I’m just too used to his performance in the boys to not see him as anything else. He’s playing the exact same kind of guy here and it’s hard to unsee. As he does in the show, he hits all the beats he needs to hit until the story requires him to actually be a horror movie character, and I don’t think he has that in him yet.
There’s an action movie that’s upcoming called Novocaine that he’s in that really suits his strengths a lot more than what he plays here. Again, he’s fine. But what he does in this movie could have been accomplished by virtually anybody else without Quaid’s character in that show being anchored to the other things that he will do. Guys like Quaid need a complete 180 from the thing that we know them for in order for the image of them as an artist to be taken a little bit more seriously. This is not the case here.
THE UGLY STUFF
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For a man who admittingly isn’t the biggest fan of horror movies, boy is it refreshing to see a horror film that makes sense, has virtually no plot holes, minimizes the stupidity of its characters drastically, is funny, is well paced, and easily clears the hurdles that so many other movies that classify themselves as horror movies simply do not do. This is not trying to be the greatest horror film of all time. It’s just trying to provide a fun night out at the movies, and that’s exactly what it does.
COMPANION is in theaters now
