1 week Ago By Jake Coyle
It’s oddly comforting that a movie can still dial M when it wants to. Smart phones have largely been a bit of a buzzkill for horror films, leading filmmakers to find all kinds of reasons — dead batteries, no service — to strand potential prey. But at least since 1949’s “Sorry, Wrong Number,” phones have also been a reliable conduit for terror capable of reaching into the home, or your pocket.
“Drop,” a silly but suspenseful new thriller, carries on the tradition of “When a Stranger Calls” and “Phone Booth” by situating its tension around mysterious, threatening phone messages. Violet ( Meghann Fahy ), a widow with a young child, is on her first date in years. After three months of texting, she has hesitantly agreed to finally meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar) for dinner.
When they sit down in a fancy restaurant high up a sleek Chicago high-rise, he’s charming and relaxed. But Violet can’t stay off her phone. In Violet’s case, though, the distraction is legitimate.
She keeps getting messages dropped to her phone threatening her son, who’s at home with Violet’s sister (Violett Beane), unless she does what he says, including killing her date. In her home security cameras she can see a man with his face covered brandishing a gun. “Drop,” directed by Christopher Landon (“Happy Death Day”) is a taut little movie, almost totally set in the restaurant, with a just keen enough sense of plausible and preposterous.
It knows to keep the pressure-cooker plot moving while not overstaying its welcome. At a nifty 95 minutes, “Drop” knows when to hang up. As if adding a digital twist to the old line “The call is coming from inside the house,” Violet is getting message from an app called DigiDrop that can only be sent from a person within 50 feet.
That means everyone in the restaurant — the bro who bumps into her, the cheesy waiter, the kind bartender — is a suspect. With her terrorizer watching her every move and prohibiting her from breathing a word to anyone, Violet is stuck rooted to her table when every fiber of her being wants to rescue her son. A considerable help to the film are the grounded screen presences of Fahy (“The White Lotus”) and Sklenar (“1923”), both small-screen breakouts who here show movie-star poise.
As the plot unspools, there are, naturally, quibbles one could make. Would a mother, with a masked gunman outside her toddler’s door be able to feign interest in a duck salad? But if “Drop” is invariably quite a bit less than realistic, it has a whiff of metaphor. Violet isn’t just stepping back into the dating pool as a single mom, she’s trying to shake the past trauma of spousal abuse.
Going on a date with Henry, whom she met on an app, is a kind of crap shoot. Will going out with a stranger met online end in love or violence? Associated Press (“Drop” contains strong violent content, suicide, some strong language and sexual references) ‘DROP’ Rated PG-13. At the AMC Boston Common, Causeway, South Bay Center, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and suburban theaters.
Grade: C+.
