We seem to be entering an era where contemporary thrillers have broken from their self-aware shackles and are having fun fulfilling their purpose as a thriller. Sometimes that’s my favorite thing about watching Christopher Landon-helmed movies (Happy Death Day, Freaky). He knows how to deliver pulpy studio horror fun that hooks audiences for the 90-minute run time without being more than what it is. Drop, which stars Meghann Fahy as a woman stalked by an anonymous airdropper while on a first date, is the most scaled-back he’s been to date, yet he takes full advantage in delivering tense, pulse-pounding fun with style and the right amount of silly.
MPA Rating: PG13 (Strong violent content, suicide, some strong language and sexual references.)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 35 Minutes
Production Companies: Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Jake Schreier
Writers: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self
Release Date: April 11, 2025
Violet (Meghann Fahy), a widowed single mother who has recently moved to Chicago, is about to go on her first date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar), a handsome photographer at a fancy restaurant. While waiting for Henry, Violet starts receiving weird, anonymous airdrops. Henry shows up and the two hit it off, even laughing about the odd messages — until they get threatening. When the sender reveals he has sent an assassin to her house to kill her sister Jen (Violett Beane) and young son Toby (Jacob Robinson), Violet must play her anonymous airdropper’s deadly game without Henry knowing. But she’s on a mission to unmask the perpetrator herself — and hopefully bag her a beau (as a treat).
Drop confidently pulls from classic Hitchcockian thriller tropes and cleverly marries them with digital-age voyeurism for the perfect foundation for its suspense. Writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach create a reverse-Rear Window, where the viewer’s lens is through the innocent person being watched amid a room of unusual suspects. For the sum of its parts, they find increasingly new aspects to make you feel every ounce of Violet’s stress. Rear Window’s influence also permeates Violet’s backstory, which is far heavier than James Stewart’s simple broken leg in the original: she is a survivor of an abusive relationship. Her trauma is explored patiently and compassionately, and brought to life through Fahy’s layered performance. Roach and Jacobs, who have penned some genuinely bad, no, awful films (Truth or Dare,Fantasy Island), have surprisingly sharpened their skills. Don’t worry, they get S-tier in silliness; don’t get it twisted. For the most part, however, they do a decent job interlinking Violet’s healing-centric heroizing arc with their modernized, reconfigured Rear Window.
Director Christopher Landon applies a welcoming flashiness to reflect Violet’s tense mindset, using (mostly) innovative composition and a theatrical style that fits the film’s pulpy tone. I couldn’t help but appreciate many of the in-your-face elements, such as the ominous texts that appear onscreen and integrate the surrounding space, which puts you inViolet’s headspace. There is a shot where the texts she reads are reflected in the mirror, meaning that the words are mirrored as well. I love stuff like that.
While Drop is clearly a pseudo-Rear Window update, it feels like it could’ve well been a Hasbro game adaptation, like Guess Who and Where’s Waldo, as we follow Violet constantly sussing out potential culprits in real time.
I already mentioned Gareth Evans, and man, I wish he or someone else of his caliber had directed this because Jonathan Entwistle (I Am Not Okay with This) just doesn’t have the juice. I can begin by stating that a television director who lacks experience in action filmmaking directing a martial arts movie as his feature debut is doomed to fail. But, to be honest, Entwistle captures my biggest complaint about modern western-produced studio action films: the director is over reliant on shaky handheld cameras and quick cuts for sequences, lessening the impact of the careful blocking and choreography to appeal to the nearest iPad kid. It’s the same as every other studio flick you see these days, from The Amateur to the most recent Captain America. The martial arts scenes had potential to be fun, too, yet the choreography and combat ranged from grounded and brutal to near Street Fighter levels of absurdity. It doesn’t pick a consistent lane, and it’s so bizarre.
The only memory I have of Meghann Fahy is seeing her on the sidewalk after getting out of a cab during SXSW and her shooting me a smile. I never watched White Lotus or The Bold Type. After Drop, I might just start, because she delivers a star-turning showcase every second of the way. Fahy sells this empathetic everywoman protagonist with charm and vulnerability, and she uses it to her advantage powerfully. Man, does Fahy pierce your nervous system with her face-of-terror at every text she receives. It’s a great leading thriller performance, and one that I’d hope gives her more exposure in film. Or at least in Landon’s world of horror. It would be great to see Fahy and Rothe have a diva-off in a Happy Death Day 3.
Fahy also has great rapport with Brandon Sklenar, another actor I had no basis for judging (because my Black ass ain’t subjecting myself to Colleen Hoover mediocrity, nor do I have any interest in 1923). Hey, he’s the right type of dreamy in a basic SoapNet star sort of way, and his Henry is written as the most generic, manic pixie-dream boy ever. You can feel the writers bend over backwards to find new ways for him to stay on his date with Violet for the sake of plot, when it maybe would’ve been stronger if this first date was a second. Despite this, Sklenar’s charm overcomes the writing’s shortcomings.
At times, Drop gets too silly and absurd for its own good, but it builds up to a big, outrageous, slightly early-2000s-coded action-packed climax, and boy does it deliver. It’s straight PG13 popcorn-flick frivolity executed in such an unpretentious manner, I can’t help but adore it. This is how you update the elements of a classic and make it timely for our modern age.
Drop is an entertaining popcorn-flick-styled Rear Window update that delivers well-earned thrills, a pulpy magnetic aesthetic, and an impressive Meghann Fahy lead performance.
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