{"id":10886,"date":"2025-01-28T23:29:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10886"},"modified":"2025-02-17T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T23:15:41","slug":"companion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/01\/28\/companion\/","title":{"rendered":"Companion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Companion<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Sci-Fi-Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, sexual content, language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Drew Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Drew Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Hrishikesh Hirway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eli Born\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Megan Suri, Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillen, Rupert Friend, Marc Menchaca, Jaboukie Young-White, Woody Fu.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

WARING: The following review might contain spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now let me clarify the preceding disclaimer. What I\u2019m about to tell you will be a spoiler to those who haven\u2019t seen the trailer for Companion<\/strong>, a clever and intelligent (not to mention completely bonkers) sci-fi-horror-thriller from writer-director Drew Hancock making his first foray into feature film. He previously wrote several episodes of Blue Mountain State and directed a couple of music videos for Tenacious D. He makes a successful jump to the big screen with this smart sci-fi-thriller centered on a group of young people spending the weekend at a lavish lakeside house.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What should be a weekend of fun and partying turns into a nightmare when one of guests Iris (Thatcher, Heretic) kills the homeowner, a shady Russian named Sergey (Friend, The Death of Stalin), for trying to sexually assault her. Iris is there with her boyfriend Josh (Quaid, Scream 5) and the others- conceited mean girl Kat (Suri, It Lives Inside) and gay couple Eli (Guillen, What We Do in the Shadows) and Patrick (Gage, Smile 2)- are his friends. They tolerate Iris for his sake. When she shows up bloodied and scared, the group\u2019s reaction isn\u2019t what you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now for the spoiler portion of the review. Last chance to bail out, folks! It turns out Iris is a robot. Specifically, she\u2019s an AI companion designed for people who can\u2019t make successful romantic or sexual connections the old-fashioned way. These \u201cf***bots\u201d, as Josh so succinctly puts it, can be programmed according to the users desires. The user is in complete control of his Companion. He decides how intelligent they are or aren\u2019t. He decides the sound of their voice and the color of their eyes. He can even order her to \u201cgo to sleep\u201d (i.e. shut down) when he needs some time to himself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition, the robots are programmed to never lie to their owners or harm any human. So what went wrong with Iris? I\u2019ll never tell. I\u2019m certainly not going to tell you any more about the plot. If you want to know more, you\u2019ll have to go see Companion<\/strong> for yourself. I urge you to do so. It\u2019s that good. It makes me wonder why New Line opted to release it in the dead land of January. It\u2019s the second great horror movie in as many weeks, the other being Steven Soderbergh\u2019s ghost tale Presence. What, you still haven\u2019t seen it? You better get on it before it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Thatcher, who looks a lot like Anya Taylor-Joy, is a rising star. She stood out in the mediocre horror film The Boogeyman. She more than held her own against Hugh Grant in last year\u2019s Heretic. She turns in her best performance yet in Companion<\/strong>. Even though she plays a robot, she\u2019s anything but robotic. She\u2019s completely convincing as a machine developing self-awareness thus challenging the power dynamics of her relationship with a control freak that doesn\u2019t see her as an individual. Josh sees her as arm candy and a sex tool, nothing more. In the role, Quaid does excellent work. He excels at playing dick characters. His going head-to-head with Iris over who has the upper hand is as thrilling (if not more) as any climax featuring a final girl running from a crazed slasher.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When discussing Companion<\/strong>, its feminist themes must be acknowledged. Iris is obviously representative of any woman who\u2019s been in a relationship with a control freak. Although programmed to be subservient to her owner, she eventually develops agency and starts to exert and reinvent herself, striking a huge blow in her fight for autonomy. It\u2019s difficult, even scary, to summon up the courage to become independent of an emotionally (or physically) abusive partner. Thatcher encompasses it perfectly and beautifully. Her love story with Josh is no fairy tale despite all programmed memories of bliss. It instead highlights the dangers of female objectification. Guys, beware!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Setting all this aside, Companion<\/strong> works simply as pure entertainment. Again, I\u2019m not going to divulge plot details except to say that…. nope, not doing it. You\u2019ll have to see for yourself. I will say that it tells a compelling story. Hancock, in conjunction with cinematographer Eli Born, makes excellent use of interiors. The house, more of an estate really, is one of those immaculate deals with stylish furniture and perfect feng shui<\/em>, not a thing is out of place. It has a clinical, sterile feel to it. It makes the goings-on feel more sinister.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are a few cool bloody kills in Companion<\/strong>, one of them involving a fancy kitchen instrument used by a character earlier in the film. It\u2019s eerie and suspenseful and even thrilling at times. It also has a wicked sense of humor, especially as it pertains to soundtrack choices. I might never hear \u201cThis Guy\u2019s in Love with You\u201d again and that\u2019s the first song my wife and I danced to at our wedding. The same goes from \u201cEmotion\u201d by Samantha Sang played over the end credits.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Companion<\/strong> may not be wholly original. It borrows ideas from movies like Blade Runner and Ex Machina. However, Hancock puts a different spin on the material and makes it feel fresh. Thus, it\u2019s a film worth checking out.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Companion (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Sci-Fi-Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, sexual content, language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Drew Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Drew Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Hrishikesh Hirway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eli Born\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Megan Suri, Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillen, Rupert Friend, Marc Menchaca, Jaboukie Young-White, Woody Fu. Rating: *** \u00bd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Companion-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10945,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10886\/revisions\/10945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}