‘Companion’ (2025)
Director Drew Hancock’s debut horror film begins like many others: Young couple Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) drive into the wilderness to meet their friends at a secluded tricked-out lake house. Sophie, new to the crew, is anxious and eager to please Josh’s friends, but upon arrival they treat her coldly. Later, she sunbathes alone by the water and is approached by their sleazy host. She tries to defend herself with whatever she has at hand. And then … Your first clue that not all is as it seems is the film’s marketing, noting its shared creators with “Barbarian” (2022). Like that twisty thriller, “Companion” is best approached with as little knowledge as possible (one is advised to even avoid the film’s final trailer, which divulges a major first-act revelation). But also like “Barbarian,” “Companion” is a biting and wryly witty work of social horror. It’s a film with much on its mind regarding its particular moment in technology and the toxic male insecurity fueling it. (It also has one of the drollest on-screen uses of a Tesla.) Once its mysteries are revealed, you realize its dynamic is all too relatable in 2025.
Perhaps the film’s greatest asset Thatcher, also fantastic in last year’s similarly topical chiller “Heretic.” The role is tricky, requiring her to play several notes at any given moment, yet she harmonizes them with natural and appealing charisma. She’s backed by a game supporting cast, including Harvey Guillen, of “What We Do in the Shadows,” as well as a mullet-donning Rupert Friend, clearly having fun with an outrageous Russian accent. When this group is at their hysterical peak, they recall the wild murder-mansion antics of the cast of “Clue” (1985).
“Companion” doesn’t wield quite the same loopy heft as “Barbarian,” and some may tire of its mix of wink-wink humor and gruesome violence. But it is undeniably a cut above the usual January horror fare, and when it comes time to look back on horror flicks that speak to the anxieties of the 2020s, I suspect “Companion” will be front and center. Let’s pray that by then its central conceit will play as dated rather than prescient. (Oscar Goff) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge; Apple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond; and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
‘Presence’ (2024)
Good ghost or bad ghost? That’s the driving question in the latest lo-fi film from genre-shifting director Steven Soderbergh. It’s more in line with DIY fare “Unsane” (2018) and “Kimi” (2022) than Soderbergh’s big-budget projects such as “Traffic” (2000), “Out of Sight” (1996) or the “Ocean’s” series. The action takes place in one suburban abode, a stately but aged Victorian with a neat wrap-around porch that a nuclear family refurbishes and moves into. The first hint at trouble is a housepainter who refuses to go into the room destined for the daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang), because of a “presence.” It’s less the paranormal blip and more the skewed family dynamic that draws attention, however. The mom, Rebekah (Lucy Liu), heavily favors her son Tyler (Eddy Maday) over Chloe, whom Rebekah asks the most of in the film. Rebekah is annoyed by Chloe’s neediness despite the recent deaths of two of Chloe’s friends – “Heathers” (1988) this is not. Tyler is also hard on Chloe and her downer routine, though they’re in the same popular clique at high school. The dad, Chris (Chris Sullivan), also seems fraught, and his relationship with Rebekah is strained. Constantly on her computer and phone, she ignores him, the tension between their children and their daughter’s depression. She often shields the screen of her devices, implying an affair or something quietly illegal, prompting Chris to call an attorney and seek advice about a spouse’s potential illegal activity. It’s a terrific hook that goes nowhere, though it’s a sharp MacGuffin courtesy of “Jurassic Park” and “Kimi” writer David Koepp. Chloe’s books start to float around her room, and when she’s about to get intimate with “it boy” Ryan (an effectively menacing West Mulholland), the shelves in her closet come crashing down. Lights flicker and a paranormal expert is called in. How the film evolves and resolves is pretty neat for a done-and-redone concept. The technique that drives the film is the fisheye lens POV (the same one that was overused in “Unsane”) that is, in theory, the supernatural being’s view. The film doesn’t totally hold together, but it’s enough to make this under-90-minute eerie thriller stick. (Tom Meek) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge; Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square; and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
Tom Meek is a writer living in Cambridge. His reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in the WBUR ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
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