Air

A nice, but not surprising thriller (Spoilers)

Violet Gates (Meghann Fahy) is a single mother who has finally started dating again after many years. Her date for the evening is the charming and hunky Henry Campbell (Brandon Sklenar). Except, on the date, Violet starts receiving air drops from a mysterious stranger with the handle “Let’s_Play,” who orders her to kill Henry or else Violet’s son, Toby (Jacob Robinson), and sister/babysitter, Jen (Violett Beane). 

Drop was directed by Christopher Landon, who previously directed the Happy Death Day movies and Freaky. Drop, however, is a total horse of a different color in comparison. There are more stylistic flourishes, like a heavier use of chiaroscuro. That’s likely to keep the audience interested in a film that’s largely set at the restaurant and without anything really happening for a long stretch of time.

The tone is also very different. The Happy Death Day movies and Freaky were both horror comedies, while Drop has a few funny moments, but is overall much more serious. And while the earlier films rely on slasher kills (albeit with a PG-13 rating in the case of Happy Death Day), Drop prioritizes suspense over violence. Or at least it tries to.

“Let’s_Play” has to be someone else in the restaurant to be sending the drops, but who could it be? Is everyone a suspect (NSFW), as the poster states? To put it bluntly, no. At the start of the movie, character actor Reed Diamond is billed third, which makes it rather obvious that he’s the villain. That’s the one blemish on an otherwise stellar opening title sequence. Overall, I have mixed feelings about Diamond’s casting in this movie.

Highs and Lows

The fact that I was able to predict who the bad guy was before the movie even began robbed the film of much of its suspense. And if you’re going to make a mystery thriller that’s primarily set in one location, the main ingredient you’re going to need is suspense. That said, I did enjoy Diamond’s performance, whose hamminess and smugness go into overdrive once his character shows his true colors. He plays someone you want to see taken down a peg to the hilt.

Of course, the highlight of the film is Fahy’s performance as Violet. The character’s backstory is that she was in an abusive relationship with the father of her child. There’s a scene during the latter half of the movie where she tells Henry how guilty she feels about staying in that relationship, even after Toby was born, which is so well done.

Overall, Drop is a well-acted and well-made movie that features improbable moments, but nothing that breaks my willing suspension of disbelief. It’s a pity that I, and most people, didn’t see it in theaters. Production company Blumhouse is currently undergoing some soul-searching after the disappointing performance of Drop and three of their other movies in a row. If I were them, I’d focus most on what went wrong with Drop, because, unlike the others, it got mostly positive reviews.