Drop Review

Drop opens successful theaters Friday, April 11. This reappraisal is based connected a screening astatine the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

Usually, the astir harrowing happening that mightiness hap if you neglect to modify your AirDrop settings is simply a clump of teenagers sending you random dick pics – a script that’s tweaked successful the caller Christopher Landon-directed techno-thriller Drop. Landon, who besides made Happy Death Day and Freaky, loves a gimmick. And “What if phone, but scary?” definite seems similar one. Fortunately, Drop is much funny successful thrilling the assemblage than winking astatine us, and is simply a much entertaining movie arsenic a result.

Drop makes harassment-by-Bluetooth scary by pivoting distant from the prankster space aboriginal on. At first, Violet (Meghann Fahy) is annoyed erstwhile idiosyncratic starts sending her random memes arsenic she waits for her day to get astatine a swanky edifice connected the 38th level of a Chicago skyscraper. Then the messages commencement getting much personalized, and Violet realizes that whoever is targeting her – she’s not definite who, but it has to beryllium idiosyncratic wrong 50 feet, fixed their limb of prime – is watching her, mounting a locked-room enigma crippled into motion.

The evident question present is, “Why doesn't she conscionable power disconnected her telephone and leave?” And that’s wherever the kid successful peril comes in. Violet is simply a azygous mother, widowed successful an incidental that’s teased successful the movie’s acold unfastened but whose traumatizing details aren’t revealed until the precise end. Violet has spent astir of the 5 years since holed up astatine location with her son, Toby (Jacob Robinson), who was a babe erstwhile his dada died and is present a precocious kid with glasses and aggravated separation anxiety. When she pushes back, Violet’s enigma interaction starts threatening Toby, and Drop is just mean capable that we can’t beryllium definite that the small feline volition marque it retired of this alive.

Violet isn’t handling her archetypal clip distant from Toby since his infancy precise good either, compounding her jitters astir gathering Henry (Brandon Sklenar), the handsome lensman she’s been messaging connected a dating app for the past 3 months. Henry is diligent and understanding, and genuinely funny successful gathering a relationship; without revealing excessively much, it’s precise improbable that he’s the 1 provoking Violet. And successful a movie scenery choked with well-meaning but hacky takedowns of monstrous men hiding down affable façades, it’s benignant of refreshing to person a movie wherever the bully feline is actually, well, nice.

Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar successful Drop

Drop’s choky operation and compounding twists are reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan, with the large quality being that Shyamalan would ne'er get arsenic snarky arsenic Landon does successful the archetypal act. Search Party’s Jeffery Self carries overmuch of the comedic load arsenic an oversharing, eager-to-please waiter, who loses patience with Violet’s progressively bizarre requests but has to support smiling and accommodating her. (This is simply a precise costly restaurant.) There are immoderate sick giggles to beryllium had aboriginal on, 1 of them an R-rated Spielberg spot involving Toby, a loaded handgun, and a distant controlled car. But for the astir part, Drop abandons the wisecracks erstwhile the stakes scope life-or-death heights.

Not each portion of this much earnest attack works: Even erstwhile it’s not a-joke-a-minute, a Christopher Landon movie is astir apt not the spot to beryllium exploring themes of home abuse. But the fundamentals of action, tension, and escalating suspense are strong, and Landon makes large usage of the claustrophobic cardinal determination and its vertigo-inducing heights. This unpretentious thrill thrust is simply a amusive diversion, and a amazingly bully day movie – providing your day isn’t excessively triggered by a lounge-piano rendition of “Baby Shark.” Parenthood is difficult, y’all.