It’s just a date. But it’s a first date, something Violet (Meghann Fahy) hasn’t been on in five years as she still holds onto the horrific sequence of events that made her a widow. From this, she has found strength in helping others and being a wonderful mother to her five-year-old, Toby (Jacob Robinson). But it’s time to get back out there, and she’s been keeping a handsome photographer, Henry (Brandon Sklenar) waiting for months, whom she met on the apps. With the help of her sister/the night’s babysitter, Jen (Violett Beane), Violet puts on something confident and makes her way to the trendy downtown Chi-town restaurant known as Palate.

After off-kilter interactions Violet has with others at the eatery while waiting for her match, the duo meet and begin to work their way past the first-date jitters. There may be a spark here! But it’s not long into the night when Violet’s phone buzzes with weird memes from the app “DigiDrop,” where users can drop files onto others’ phones as long as they’re in a 50 meter radius. She thinks nothing of them until they become threatening and call her out along with her loved ones, and to drive home the threat, an armed intruder in her home is shown that’s ready to kill with the directive of the unknown sender. Shaken, Violet is told she can’t communicate to Henry the scenario, and to keep her loved ones alive the date must go on and all directions given must be followed.

Thrillers come in various shapes and sizes. There’s the immaculately written, white-knuckled offerings that can keep viewers gripped from beginning to end…and then there are those ones that are a little less so, usually more loose in their plotting, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that those that fit the latter description are not entertaining or full wastes of time. And that’s the feeling I have with Drop.

Director Christopher Landon has made a career of melding horror—typically of the slasher variety—with comedy, as seen with the Happy Death Day movies and 2020’s Freaky. It’s been a while since he’s done something outside of that wheelhouse, so Drop stands as a pretty fresh endeavor for him. His latest film’s premise is very reminiscent to past films of yesteryear where protagonists are locked into inescapable, confined structures such as Red Eye and Phone Booth. Visually, he’s paying homage to the legendary Hitchcock constantly through voyeuristic camera positioning (along with a few Dutch angles), detailed use of lighting, and of course, the one-location dominant setting. Palate is a luxurious and labyrinth-like establishment that Landon uses to highlight areas of interest and people of interest; an Instagram influencer’s dream. Stylistically, the feature is never lacking.

What is lacking in Drop is feasibility. This doesn’t make the movie unwatchable, but the script co-written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach is full of gaps that are quite visible early on and beg certain questions, starting with “What if the date never happened?”, or “How would the night change if Mr. Patience wasn’t so accommodating?”, and continuing from there. As good as Landon’s direction is, it doesn’t save a slower second act where things feel repetitive. When the feature kicks into its last act, Drop gets it half right with an impressively goofy reveal and an underwhelming one. But in totality, it amounts to a script that probably needed another pass through. There is the outline of a really good script that ties nicely to the themes the movie poses about the direct and implied fears/vulnerabilities of online dating (particularly through the lens of women), but the version present requires a proactive acknowledgement of very lean logic.

Drop is an optimal showcase for its lead actress, Fahey. It’s a harder role than what it may seem at first glance, with the emphasis on reacting to what is on a screen and then with someone in front of her, while trying to feign a normal facade as all those past traumas and inadequacies stir back inside her body. Similar to Jessica Rothe in Landon’s Death Day features, her work keeps the vehicle in motion. The chemistry she shares with Sklenar is calibrated perfectly to what the average “good” first date looks like: Still a little awkward but evidence of harmony.

Looking for exhibit A on why people should always opt for at least some haptic feedback when receiving notifications? Drop says hello. Despite a spotty script, the elevated direction Landon brings along with a rock-solid Fahey performance makes the film succeed well enough as a fast-moving, contained thriller.

C+

Photo credits go to impawards.com, IMDB.com, and screenrant.com.