Director: Drew Hancock
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Rupert Friend
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 97 mins

Companion is a sci-fi horror directed by Drew Hancock in his feature film debut and produced by Zach Cregger, who made the excellent Barbarian. The film opens on Iris (Sophie Thatcher) remembering how she first met her boyfriend, Josh (Jack Quaid). We then see the couple heading on a weekend getaway with friends to a grand lake house and to say anymore would be heading into spoiler territory. This is very much a film to go into blind – don’t watch the trailer because it gives away too much.

Companion is a mixed bag. On the plus side, there are some interesting ideas and attempts at social satire, but they’re not all fully-fledged (more on that later). The film’s well shot by Eli Born and it’s slickly edited too. Both Jack Quaid and an unrecognisable Rupert Friend stand out among the cast. As for Sophie Thatcher, who was the weaker half of the duo of missionaries in last year’s Heretic, she’s serviceable as Iris but doesn’t make a lasting impression.   

However, the rest of the film is deeply flawed. While Zach Cregger had a commanding view on Barbarian’s pacing, Hancock isn’t in the same league. The first twenty minutes or so has some pretty ear-scraping dialogue and a finale that reminded me of The Terminator is rather unnecessary – there’s a neat point where this film could have ended that would have left the rest of the events to the audience’s imagination.

As a result, although Companion is only a 97-minute film, the reasonably assured second act isn’t substantial enough to warrant a feature length film on its own, but the bookending first and third acts around it feel too long. It’s simply poorly paced and the film would have benefitted from another rewrite. The score by Hrishikesh Hirway doesn’t really work either and the film needs something more melodic and menacing.

While certain elements of Companion work rather well, it could have been much sharper and have more bite for the ambitious story it’s trying to tell. I found the film sporadically fun but overall somewhat of a missed opportunity.