Drop (2025)

★★★ Fahy and Sklenar's on-screen chemistry perfectly captures the awkwardness of first dates in this entertaining modern Hitchcockian thriller from Christopher Landon.

Watch May 23, 2025 0 1 Add to Reading List

Dir: Christopher Landon

Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self

Fahy and Sklenar’s on-screen chemistry perfectly captures the awkwardness of first dates in this entertaining modern Hitchcockian thriller from Christopher Landon

At a time when most movies lack direction or identity, often stumbling across multiple genres for well over two hours, it is refreshing to find the odd little gem that efficiently sets up its premise and delivers it briskly. Writer-director Christopher Landon has done just that having risen to prominence over the past decade or two, with the 50-year old’s distinct, pulpy style setting the precedent for how old-school cinema can be revived for modern audiences. Landon has become well known for his horror interpretations of childhood classics, with films like “Freaky Friday” and “Groundhog Day” undergoing the horror treatment with his incredibly funny and equally bloody popcorn-slasher flicks “Freaky” (2020) and “Happy Death Day” (2017).

Despite being heavily associated with horror in recent years, having also penned the likes of the recent holiday slasher “Heart Eyes” (2025), as well as five instalments in the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, it has become easy to forget that Landon first broke onto the seen in 2007, writing the screenplay for the criminally underrated “Disturbia”, a then modern-day reinterpretation of Alfred Hitchcock‘s classic 1954 thriller “Rear Window”. Having been stuck in the horror genre for the following eighteen years, it is great to see Landon return to the genre that led to his breakout almost 20 years ago.

“Drop” Trailer | Universal

The curiously titled “Drop” follows Chicago therapist Violet (Meghann Fahy), who following the death of her abusive husband years prior, has finally decided to get back into the dating scene. Violet reluctantly leaves her young son Toby (Jacob Robinson) at home with her younger sister Jen (Violett Beane), as she arrives at a high-rise restaurant in readiness for her date with photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar). A Violet waits for Henry to arrive, she meets a number of the restaurant’s staff and patrons such as bartender, Cara (Gabrielle Ryan), eccentric waiter Matt (Jeffery Self), flirtatious in-house Pianist Phil (Ed Weeks), and fellow diner, Richard (Reed Diamond), who is waiting on a blind date.

Once Henry arrives, the couple are escorted to their window-side table by Matt, overlooking the night-time Chicago landscape, and having become acquainted on an online dating app months prior, the pair immediately hit it off. Just as Henry reassures her that Toby is perfectly safe at home and that she should be allowed to enjoy herself, Violet begins to receive several increasingly threatening memes from an unknown assailant via “Digi-drop”. Expressing her concerns to Henry, he informs her that the sender must be in the restaurant and that she should dismiss them as nothing more than a prank. Without further expressing her concerns to Henry, the drops become relentless, until they advise Violet to check her home security cameras, where she witnesses a masked gunman knock out her sister and lock Toby in his room. Sceptical of everyone within her vicinity, Violet must locate and eliminate her digital heckler without raising suspicion in order to keep her son safe, whilst also trying to enjoy her date with Henry.

Much like his previous genre works, Christopher Landon wastes no time setting up this old-school, edge-of-the-seat thriller. After a purposely ambiguous cold open, we are immediately introduced to Fahy’s Violet as she is nervously preparing for her date. Despite being a genre piece that leans more heavily into the thriller genre than romance, what “Drop” does extremely well is capture the general awkwardness everyone experiences when on a first date. Fahy and Sklenar both do an exceptional job of building sexual tension, as well as social tension. It is a fine line that could very easily result in the pair appearing to have no on-screen chemistry or be unrealistically too smitten, especially given the extreme circumstances they find themselves in. Everything from the oversharing waiting staff to the drunk and flirty piano player only adds to the already cringe-worthy situation, and this is before Violet’s real threat even reveals itself.

Taking place primarily within the confines of the nauseatingly high Chicago restaurant, it is essential that Landon and his creative team utilise the localised setting to the best of their abilities, and like some of the best Hitchcockian thrillers, every nook and cranny of the set, whether it be the bar, toilet or even the elevator are fully explored throughout the brisk 95-minute runtime. The restaurant itself is open-plan, only further fuelling Violet’s paranoia as she knows that no matter where she is, her stalker will still have eyes on her. There is also a clever use of on-screen graphics, with various walls and restaurant décor temporarily transforming into text messages or video footage, to reveal exactly what Violet is being sent by the perpetrator, whilst the questionably oblivious Henry begins to lose his patience with his unsociable date.

The downfall of “Drop” however is its overly paced and messy final act, where the tense and claustrophobic setting of the restaurant is left behind, in favour of car chases and domestic fisticuffs. Having been built up for most of the runtime, the big reveal in which Violet’s troll is finally exposed I found somewhat underwhelming and predictable. With there only being a handful of potential culprits, I found that Landon and his writing team played it too safe, never attempting to pull the rug from under the audience at any point. The reveal itself also comes too early in my opinion, as this culminates in a hectic final fifteen minutes where the mystery element driving the film has been removed, removing a level of engagement.

Having said that, “Drop” still proves to be a more than serviceable thriller, one that should go down as a perfect date night movie, something Landon has become known for over the years. While it may not match up to some of his gorier, or even funnier efforts in the past, it is still great to see Landon explore genre cinema outside of horror, after all, there are so many old-school Hollywood tropes he can twist into slashers….you would think anyway.

Drop is now showing in UK Cinemas