Drop
Meghann Fahy & Brandon Sklenar in Drop
If you’ve ever felt uneasy sharing your number with a stranger, Drop is here to confirm that instinct.
Directed by genre-bender Christopher Landon, Drop wastes no time throwing its audience into a tense, high-concept nightmare. When Violet (Meghann Fahy), a single mother and psychiatrist with a dark past, agrees to a first date, things quickly unravel thanks to an innocuous tap of her phone’s AirDrop feature. What follows is a tightly wound evening of shifting identities, buried secrets, and real-time suspense.
The film leans into the ways technology weaves itself into our lives as a means to drive the plot forward. Drop is not about warning us off our phones. It’s about what happens when they reveal more than we want them to.
Editing That Ratchets Up The Anxiety Levels
The most striking thing about Drop is how it moves. The pacing is relentless, the storytelling urgent, and the visual approach absolutely kinetic.
Text messages flash across the screen not as throwaway captions, but as dramatic, bold, screen-enveloping VFXs that bring Violet’s text messages to life, splashing across the screen in a way that’s both informative and immersive. The constant hum of digital interconnectivity adds a rich layer of tension, as Violet’s phone becomes both her lifeline and her enemy.
The editing style is slick, vibrant, and completely addictive, dragging viewers headfirst into her panic-ridden night. Landon and his team use every tool available to dial up the tension, turning digital communication into something thrilling and immediate.
Genre-Bending with a Few Bumps
Drop isn’t content to sit neatly in one box. It dips into romantic comedy, veers into psychological drama, and dives headfirst into brutal thriller territory. The result is mostly exhilarating.
One moment, it’s rom-com sweet; the next, it’s Jason Bourne meets Gone Girl. That genre-mash is mostly a blast, especially in the pulse-pounding final act, which delivers a visceral crescendo that feels both shocking and earned.
But not every pivot lands. The film occasionally leans too hard into comic relief, especially when the tension is peaking. While the dark humour is intentional, it sometimes undercuts the stakes, softening what could’ve been edge-of-your-seat moments.
Brandon Sklenar’s Henry is disarming in all the right ways, while a faceless and nameless stranger adds an unsettling unpredictability that forces you to question everyone and their potentially sinister intentions. The film builds its suspense with a steady hand, culminating in a climactic sequence that is as violent as it is satisfying.
Still, for every offbeat gag, there’s a gut-punch reveal or smart bit of visual storytelling ready to reel you back in.
Meghann Fahy in Drop
A Thriller for the Digital Age
At its core, Drop is a commentary on modern connectivity, particularly how our phones make us both empowered and exposed. Violet’s trauma as a survivor of abuse intertwines with the film’s exploration of online dating and digital stalking, making it eerily relatable.
The film doesn’t just use technology as a plot device — it weaponises it, turning something as mundane as an Airdrop into a tool of terror. For audiences who love their thrillers sleek, smart, and socially aware, Drop delivers, even if it occasionally stumbles over its own cleverness.
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