Summary
Built on a simple premise and a superb lead turn from Meghann Fahy, Christopher Landon’s film is a taut, tech-fuelled thriller.
So many thrillers take the simplest pieces of technology and ask the obvious question: how can this be used to foster abject terror? Christopher Landon—who previously fused horror with time loops and body swaps in Happy Death Day and Freaky—now turns his attention to something we all carry in our pockets and weaponises it.
Violet (Meghann Fahy), a widowed single mother and survivor of spousal abuse, ventures out on her first date in years. Things with Henry (Brandon Sklenar) are going smoothly—until a series of anonymous air-dropped messages begin arriving on her phone. With her son and younger sister Jen (Violett Beane) in immediate danger, Violet has no choice but to follow the phone’s increasingly sinister instructions.
There’s something a little old-fashioned about DROP—but in the most endearing way. Building a thriller around a feature that’s been on phones for over a decade might seem like it missed the boat on techno-horror, but writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach instead lean into something more Hitchcockian in pace and tone.
Confined almost entirely to the skyline restaurant where Violet and Henry’s date takes place—with occasional glimpses of Violet’s home via a nanny cam—Landon turns the single location into a pressure cooker. An escape-room style structure builds steadily: a revelation in the bathroom, a note slipped to a piano player, a new element emerging at just the right (or wrong) moment. It’s all in the small details, but they add up to a knuckle-whitening experience.
None of it would work without Fahy’s committed and convincing lead performance—a welcome change from the paper-thin roles women are too often given in the genre. There are also thoughtful moments exploring the nature of abuse and trauma, and the many forms it can take. Sklenar is a strong counterpoint to Fahy, which is all the more impressive given how little of the film is actually about him.
DROP, well, drops the ball just a little in the final act, when it shifts gears into a different kind of thriller. It’s an inevitable turn; the bubble had to burst sometime. But what begins as a taut pressure-cooker loses some of its bite as the scope suddenly widens, racing through a grab-bag of broader genre elements.
Still, Landon delivers a solid game of cat-and-mouse, further cementing his reputation as a purveyor of quality scares. With tension and jump-scares pumping right to the end, DROP will make every bad date look like a dream—and ensure your AirDrop setting is permanently turned off.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Christopher Landon | WRITERS: Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach | CAST: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 11 April 2025 (USA), 17 April 2025 (Australia
