This year we have been blessed by two Valentine’s themed, horror-adjacent movies. Companion is arguably much less horror than February 7^th’s Heart Eyes. This sci-fi thriller still has a high creep factor, a respectable death toll. It also and asks some unsettling questions about the transactional nature of relationships. In short: I loved it. 

• Directed by: Drew Hancock
• Written by: Drew Hancock
• Starring: Sophie Thatcher Jack Quaid
• Produced by: Zach Cregger . I don’t normally call out producers, but this one directed Barbarian, one of my favorite “go into it blind” experiences. Roy Lee, Raphael Margules J. D. Lifshitz

About Horror

I’m not here to gatekeep horror. When I go see a movie marketed as “horror”, there are certain genre elements I am looking for. I review it on the basis of those elements. Each genre has specific elements; they can be blended: horror-comedy (Sean of the Dead), action-horror (Dog Soldiers), fantasy-horror-comedy (Army of Darkness). All of these movies hit all the genre elements included.  Companion does not hit horror, although it has horrifying concepts. This is not about what scares me, but the structure and composition of a movie.

About Reviewing Companion

I’m going to try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but I will be discussing elements revealed in the trailer. 

If you’ve seen the trailers for Companion, the early parts of the script will hit very differently.  This is an ad campaign where the hook is the one of the twists. Selling audiences on the film without including it could be difficult, or even disastrous, for the financial prospects of the movie.

Without that bit of information, Companion opens with Iris, a woman devoted to her clumsy but decent boyfriend, Josh. Until bit by bit, his mask starts to slip. There are subtle things in the dialogue that seem off, like the way he commands her. Or, the conversations she has with his female best friend, Cat, about how Iris make her feel replaceable. All of these indicate a toxic friend group. 

When the weekend takes a dark turn, the truth comes out: Iris is an “emotional support” robot that Josh has used an illegal mod on to better suit his needs. This is something not even Iris knew, and now she has to unpack who she and Josh really are, and what this means for their relationship as well as her identity and self-worth. This doesn’t sound horror-adjacent at all, but don’t forget the respectable death toll I mentioned. When things go bad in this relationship, they go real bad real quick.

Relationships Can be Scary

Companion is about relationships, both toxic and otherwise. It presents different types of relationships under ideal, and then stressful, circumstances. While it doesn’t go too deep into these topics, it does make some pointed observations about the type of person who would jailbreak their companion robot in the first place. 

But Companion is not about how men are bad and women, robot or otherwise, are good. It’s a more clever and vicious script than that. Everyone in Companion is capable of cruelty, kindness, and sacrificing others for their self-interest. What it is about, is how easy it is to boil a relationship down to what your partner provides for you. How the balance of equality can be shifted, and once it has, you can never recover from that point. 

The Perfect Cast

The fact that the director accomplishes heavy themes with humor is, in large part, related to the perfect casting.  Jack Quaid is, if you haven’t noticed, everywhere as the affable everyman. For me however, he is at his best at in these types of roles: the hidden bastard. He played a similar role in Scream 5, although this one is more subtle and allows him to switch from genuinely charming to menacing with one word.  Also, I find him shrieking in terror hilarious. He may always be Boimler of Lower Decks, but I hope he plays more villains too. 

Sophie Thatcher plays Iris, the companion.  It’s her movie; her face is on the poster and her narration both starts and ends things. She’s charming and vulnerable and apparently, she can shed a single tear on cue.  The physical acting in Companion is terrific. Small gestures and facial tics convey a lot from Thatcher, Quaid, and the supporting cast. 

That Sounds Good

Now I’m going to talk about sound effects and audio. Skip ahead if you don’t get excited about that kind of thing. This was some of the best audio and sound effects I’ve experienced in a movie. There are several moments when the sound effects are used to foreshadow developments later in the movie that pay off in delightful ways.  It’s the kind of thing that unless you’re looking for it, you might not notice or appreciate. H³, who came with me and enjoyed this one very much, didn’t notice, so it’s not distracting, just rewarding if you’re obsessed with audio effects. 

The soundtrack is also delightful. Upbeat and filled with retro hits and ironic needle drops, it plays like a standard rom-com soundtrack. It adds to the overall charming quality of the movie that makes some of the tougher elements easier to swallow. 

Making Inhuman Human

One of those elements is Josh’s treatment of Iris. I’ve been trying to figure out if Companion is a better experience if you don’t know she’s a robot until the script reveals it.  The dialogue drops a few clues that are also coded for a controlling relationship. He’s dismissive of her feelings, he commands her, ignores her.  That’s not because she’s not a real girl yet. It’s because he’s a dick and treats all women like this.  He treats his friend Cat in a similar, thoughtless manner later.  Side note: there are only two women in this movie, so the sample size for Josh’s behavior is admittedly small. I’m going off the information I’m presented with. 

I’m the kind of person that anthropomorphizes my camera, so treating anything that appears human as less than is beyond me. As such, I’m probably the target audience for Companion and other robot rebellion movies. It’s not a new genre, but it is an example of one done with a smart script, great actors, and appropriate tension-breaking humor. For once, marketing didn’t over-hype this one when they called it a “perfect date movie”, depending on who you’re dating.

Final Throughs

Companion is smart, funny and relevant. If you are looking for a satirical thriller that’s light on gore and full of quirky characters, you’ll probably really dig this one. If you need more intense scares, kills and thrills or if you’re the kind of person who just can’t wait for mass market sexbots, you might want to wait for streaming.

Check out my other recent horror movie reviews here:

• Wolf Man
• Presence