Drop (2025)

I had initially considered doing my review of Drop in the style of a song parody, mentioning everything I dislike about the film followed by the phrase "drop it like it's hot." That just didn't seem right though. I didn't think I would be able to fully convey my complete disdain for what is one of the worst, and most incompetent, mainstream thrillers I have seen in years.

Meghann Fahy is Violet, a widow (and, importantly, a survivor of domestic abuse) who has finally plucked up the courage to go on a date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar). She leaves her young son, Toby (Jacob Robinson), in the care of her sister, Jen (Violett Beane), and hopes to enjoy the evening ahead. Someone has other plans though, and they start terrorising and controlling Violet through numerous instructions that anonymously drop into her phone. With her family on the line, can Violet figure out a way to either defeat the unknown villain, or will she have to ultimately kill the person she has been told to target?

While I am unhappy with director Christopher Landon for putting his name to this, he is the least of the problems that the film has. In fact, when it comes to some moments that convey the phone messages while keeping viewers aware of the various characters moving through different parts of the fancy restaurant, he can even receive one of the few compliments that I am willing to give this film. Everyone else can throw themselves into the nearest wheelie bin.

Writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach haven't given us the best screenplays in the past, and they have managed to bring out the worst in one another since pairing up over the last few years (with the diminishing returns of Truth Or Dare, Fantasy Island, and now this). Everything they serve up here is a hot mess, from the clumsy exposition to the mishandling of some very weighty material, the attempts to make things quirky and fun, and even just the dialogue between our leads. It never feels in any way believable (my partner and I both agreed that the date would have been over within about 20 minutes, at most), it subsequently lacks any tension, and I spent most of the runtime just waiting for whatever ridiculous finale was going to come along and prove me right for having skipped this in cinemas.

The leads don't help either. Fahy tries hard with what she's given, but she's overwhelmed by the absolute crappiness of the writing. Sklenar, on the other hand, positions himself as a handsome lead so bland and stiff that I was wishing they had cast Scott Eastwood in the role instead (and that's something I thought I'd never say). Beane is a welcome presence, sadly offscreen for most of the film, Jeffery Self is a very annoying waiter, Ed Weeks is a very annoying piano player, and Gabrielle Ryan, Sarah McCormack, Travis Nelson, Reed Diamond, and one or two others keep moving in and out of focus to allow themselves to become suspects or victims, depending on which way the film wants to go.

The restaurant design is quite nice. That's about the only other positive I can think of. Nothing else works. This is a "high-concept" thriller that should have been worked on for at least three more drafts. Although I am not sure if anything could have been done to majorly improve something so ridiculous. Even Carry-On was better than this, and I was not a fan of that one.

3/10

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Truth Or Dare (2018)

You all know how the game of Truth Or Dare works. People take turns. You either have to tell the truth or perform a dare. The truths normally stem from embarrassing questions about who you have a crush on or what you've done in your sex life, the dares can range from attempts at limbo to making out with strangers to, well, whatever your crowd thinks is going to test your mettle.

Truth Or Dare works pretty much the same way in movie form, except it's anyone around you who can tell you when it is your turn, the truths exposed can be much more damaging, and most of the dares are deadly.

That's really all you need to know about this glossy horror film aimed squarely at the teen market (there's a bland and attractive cast, a lack of any real gore or bloodshed, and a repeated special effect that, as so many others have already pointed out, simply looks like a quirky photo messenger filter). It's not bad - says the man who remains, at times, one of the most easily pleased viewers you could hope for - but it doesn't do enough to keep most horror fans happy, aside from those who may be very new to the delights of the genre.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Lucy Hale (who plays the nominal lead character), Tyler Posey, Violette Beane, Hayden Szeto, or any of the other young cast members. They're just far too easy to forget as soon as the end credits roll. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it took me a good 15-20 minutes to start identifying most of the individuals separately, instead treating them as one mass of potential victims without any personality until one or two had been pushed off the mortal coil.

There's also nothing majorly wrong with the direction from Jeff Wadlow. He doesn't ever present things with any style or panache, but he shows a basic level of competence, making the film a relatively painless experience (in good and bad ways), helped along by the pacing.

The biggest problem here is the script, and the essentially juvenile nature of the central premise. There have, of course, been other movies based on childish games, but there are some games that are often carried through to adulthood (even if we should know better) or that we can look back on with fond memories of the time when we could be more innocent/idiotic/delete as applicable. Truth Or Dare just isn't one of those games, and I'd be very interested to hear back from anyone who thinks otherwise. It's a game expressly designed, it would seem, to drag people out of their shells, and maybe even get them some heavy petting. Turning it into a tame teen horror means that you end up with something that just isn't all that much fun. Writers Michael Reisz, Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach, and Wadlow let down both the cast and the viewers, eyeing up the biggest possible audience demographic without doing enough to truly please anyone in it.

Lots of people will sneer at this, and some will absolutely hate it, but it's far from the worst example out there of the kind of horror that doesn't show off the genre at its best but does make enough money at the box office to potentially fund three or four other genre movies, and one of those may even appeal to more than just teens.

5/10

Pick up the shiny disc here.
Americans can buy it here.