Scares Land, Laughs Don't: Christopher Landon's Drop Is Good, Not Great

Horror comedies are tough to get right. They usually lean a bit too far in one direction, so if a director can consistently find the perfect goldilocks balance between these two genres, I’m automatically a fan. Unfortunately, not many filmmakers fit that bill, but there’s one who can seamlessly blend laughs and scares in his sleep: Christopher Landon. This guy directed both Happy Death Day movies and the fantastic slasher comedy Freaky, so it should come as no surprise that I’ve been looking forward to his new movie, Drop, ever since it was announced. I was confident it would be another hair-raising and hilarious success, so I bought a ticket for opening night as soon as I got the chance.

Drop was directed by Christopher Landon, and it stars Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, and Jeffery Self. In the film, Violet is a young widow ready to get back on the dating scene. She met a guy named Henry online, and now they’re going out in person for the first time. It’s a big step for Violet, but even she couldn’t have imagined just how momentous this date would be.

Almost from the moment she walks into the restaurant, she starts receiving anonymous AirDrop messages on her phone, and she eventually learns that someone wants her to murder her date. If she doesn’t, this mysterious stalker is going to kill her son, so Violet is faced with an impossible choice: commit murder herself or let the most important person in her life die.

It’s a fairly simple setup, so you might be wondering if Drop can sustain the tension for its entire 90(ish)-minute runtime. After all, our protagonist doesn’t appear to have a ton of options here, but somehow, director Christopher Landon finds a way to make it work. He takes a bit of time building up to Violet’s hellish dilemma, and once we get there, the woman proves to be pretty quick on her feet.

She stalls for time in a number of inventive ways–like trying to move to another table and faking clumsiness–so even after she receives her ultimatum, Landon still manages to milk this seemingly shallow idea for all its worth. And let me tell you, it’s worth quite a bit. Not only is the back and forth between Violet and her anonymous interlocutor thrillingly tense, but Drop is also a bit of a whodunnit.

The woman has no idea who’s sending her these ominous messages, so it could be anybody in the restaurant. Is it the cheesily sleazy piano player? Or the nice bartender? Or could it be the random guy she bumps into a few times? In the words of Scream, everybody’s a suspect, so your head will quickly start spinning as you try to figure out which one of these characters is the culprit.

That mystery multiplies the fun exponentially, but tension and suspense can only get you so far. Drop also needs likable characters to put in its villain’s crosshairs, and thankfully, Violet and Henry are more than up to the task. Actors Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar both seem like cool, fun people to be around, but they also imbue their dynamic with the kind of awkwardness you’d expect from a couple on their very first date.

That slight but noticeable unease makes them surprisingly relatable and very easy to root for, so you’ll care quite a bit about both of them. You won’t want Violet to lose her son, but you also won’t want Henry to die. Those seemingly contradictory desires put you in almost as much of a pickle as Violet herself, so you’ll become invested in these characters and their story in no time.

All that being said, I don’t want to give the impression that Drop is a perfect movie. It’s not. In fact, even though I enjoyed the experience overall, I wouldn’t quite say it’s one of the best films of the year so far, and that’s largely due to two main flaws.

For starters, as I mentioned before, Christopher Landon is usually great at mixing scares with laughs, but Drop, shall we say, drops the ball on that front. Sure, the movie has a couple of chuckle-worthy moments here and there, but way too much of the humor falls completely flat. In particular, the main source of comic relief here is Henry and Violet’s waiter, and I found him more annoying than funny. I cringed just about every time this guy opened his mouth, and if you ask me, there are few things worse in a film than ineffective comedy.

On top of that, Drop is also very thin thematically. To be fair, the movie actually deals with some weighty themes–abuse, seemingly insoluble moral dilemmas, and a parent’s duty to protect their kids–but the story doesn’t go into much depth with any of them. Every time one of these ideas comes up, the film merely touches on it and quickly moves onto something else, so when all was said and done, I left the theater feeling a little empty.

I just thought Drop could and should have had more to say, and when you combine that thematic listlessness with the unfunny comedy, you get a thriller that doesn’t live up to its full potential. Don’t get me wrong, I had a pretty good time with this movie, and I recommend giving it a watch if it sounds like something you’d enjoy. But it’s not quite as good as I wanted it to be, so if you decide to see it, you should probably temper your expectations a tiny bit.