Dating in the modern world is excruciating hell, obviously but aha, “you don’t even know the half of it!” says “Drop” the silly, far-fetched, but still slightly enjoyable thriller from horror director Christopher Landon (“Happy Death Day,” “Freaky”).
However, before the entrees, “Drop” delivers the aperitifs of haunting trauma. Emmy-nominated thespian Meghann Fahy, breakout actress of “The White Lotus” season two, stars as Violet, and we’re introduced to her bloody, beaten and starring down the barrel of a gun. The audience eventually pieces together she was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her violent and unhinged ex-husband who died in the altercation, but not before seriously traumatizing this now single mother turned abuse therapist.
READ MORE: ‘Drop’ Trailer: Meghann Fahy & Brandon Sklenar Go On A Date From Hell In New Christopher Landon Thriller
Cut to two years later and Violet is finally ready, tentatively, to get out there again. On the apps, she lands a first date with the handsome and understanding Henry (“1923” hunk Brandon Sklenar), a press photographer for the Chicago mayor, so she enlists her spunky younger sister Jen (Violett Beane), to babysit her little boy Toby (Jacob Robinson), so she can try and get back on the relationship horse.
Anxious and jittery, she nonetheless hits it off with Henry in a swanky Chicago restaurant high above the city with a spectacular view. But before she can even enjoy the mutual attraction and chemistry the two seem to immediately share, she becomes taunted and pestered by air drops hitting her cell phone, escalating in their harassing nature.
Initially, the chivalrous Henry’s in on this nuisance, assuming it’s a prank and valiantly trying to deduce who in the restaurant may be the culprit. Eventually, the anonymous messages become sinister and disturbing when the messages reveal that an intruder has snuck into Violet’s home, waiting in secret to harm her son and sister if she doesn’t do what she’s told. Violet is not only commanded to pretend everything’s fine and keep Henry out of the loop but is eventually terrorized into conspiring to have him killed.
Taxing one’s patience and just dragging things out for too long, even at a lean 95 minutes, “Drop” strains at credulity. Why didn’t Violet just turn her airdrop function off early on when her date started, the one she was supposedly really excited about? Why is a 2025 movie using technology that was popular for harassment on subways five years ago?
If you can get past these suspension of disbelief dealbreakers and some of the unintentional laughter much of the Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach-penned script produces, there’s still joys to be found in the movie.
Landon knows how to direct, craft suspense and build tension, all within the settings of a largely confined restaurant space. While much of the CGI technology used to convey the terrorizer’s messages is ostensibly clever—big, bold words splayed across the big glass windows of the restaurant conveying the anxiety and fright that only Violet and the audience are reading—this trick does get old and obnoxious quickly.
Perhaps the most egregious credibility burden the movie faces is just how compassionate and patient your average dude can be on a first date. Henry’s clearly a good dude, but all the insanity he has to endure—Violet constantly disappearing for minutes on end, being on her phone, perennially distracted and not present, asking to switch tables to get around listening devices, only to ask to return seconds later, etc.—doesn’t raise the tension, it only vexes the observant viewer.
Like a lot of modern horror, “Drop” doesn’t really have all that much respect for an audience’s intelligence and often veers into the ridiculous, the script just too implausible for its own good.
Still, as unbelievable, preposterous and risible “Drop” often is, the thriller is still usually held together by just how good and convincing Fahy is. As the emotionally fragile single mom in peril, trying to protect her son, terrified of what might happen, and desperately trying to pretend to her increasingly concerned date that all is fine, she’s a terrific surrogate for the emotional roller coaster that “Drop” attempts to take you on. When the script gets too ludicrous and rickety, and it often does, Fahy is the one who grounds the story in something genuine and emotionally resonant.
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While “Drop” also stresses itself by putting undue pressure on its ability to carry very sobering, grim and not-at-all-funny ideas of trauma and abuse and breaking out of a victim cycle next to the more outlandish twists of the screenplay, between Landon’s taught direction and Fahy’s persuasive performance, the film still manages to entertain.
Co-starring Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan Spring, Travis Nelson, Ed Weeks, and Jeffery Self as the couple’s obliviously obnoxious waiter—a performance that is overwrought and overbaked, but again, feels like more of a script problem—no one in “Drop,” even Sklenar, is on Fahy’s level, but then again, she’s got the meatiest role of them all.
Pulpy and silly, while still having Hitchcockian levels of taut tension and suspense, this first-date-gone-wrong thriller may not be logically coherent, but it’s still self-aware of itself enough and its outrageous moments that it still manages to be a relatively fun diversion despite its inherent inanities. While “Drop” unfortunately doesn’t have much to say about the complexities (and hellishness) of modern dating, it’s still a mild swipe right, maybe worth chatting with as a backup in case your main sidepiece doesn’t show up. [B-]
“Drop” opens in theaters April 11 via Univeral.