The movie opens with a nice-looking girlfriend and her boyfriend, driving to a lake house for a nice little weekend vacation as most nice horror movies do. “Companion” is not a nice horror movie. “Companion” is a movie of chances, wit and romantic robots reaching self-actualization as they defeat their evil and incredibly human partners in a post-capitalist society.
“Companion,” the newest satirical horror-comedy directed by Drew Hancock, takes a sharp, darkly humorous look at a world where technology dictates romantic relationships. People have the opportunity to purchase and perfectly program their AI-bot companion to meet their every need.
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is one of these humanoid robots controlled by her buyer/boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) who decides to take her on a weekend getaway to his friend’s boyfriend’s lake house. What starts as a getaway turns into chaos when Iris malfunctions in an unexpected act of self-defense that sends the group of friends into a panic.
This film is essentially spoiler-proof. It tells you in the trailer what is going to happen, Iris is a robot and she’s going to try to kill her boyfriend when she discovers she’s a robot with a diabolical romantic partner. Rather than relying on twists to deceive the audience, the movie embraces its straightforward horror premise, using it as a clever backdrop for unexpected and often comedic surprises.
The unexpected humor was without a doubt the film’s most surprising feature. This begins not even ten minutes into the film when we’re introduced to the (very Russian) owner of the lake house, Sergey. His ridiculous mustache, kooky mullet, and overly pompous attitude were severely out of place in what seemed to be a serious horror movie. The goofiness only began here.
The witty dialogue, combined with a very self-aware tone, provided an exploration of the darkest instincts that robots can provoke in humanity. By subverting the genres of comedy and horror, Hancock was able to happily entertain the viewer while delivering very real commentaries on the dangers of normalizing a culture of non-consent.
While this film wasn’t revolutionary, it was very enjoyable and gave me something I didn’t expect going in, which is always a good thing to extract from a movie. The combined talent of Hancock and the production team of the 2022 horror film “Barbarian” made for a fun addition to the comedy-horror world that I hope every scary movie nut has the pleasure of seeing.
