Movie Review: Drop

The fault with director Christopher Landon’s new film Drop will not be found within the setup – that is handled effectively enough – nor will it be gleaned via the delivery of said concept – that, too, is competently accomplished. No, the problem with the overall production is present in the simple fact that the stakes for the main character in the film prove so inconsequential for the viewer that the entirety of the film’s proceedings amount to little more than the least entertaining dinner date ever recorded on celluloid.

Meghann Fahy stars as widowed mother Violet who, on her first date in years, meets Henry (Brandon Sklenar) at an upscale restaurant. After the two hit it off after being surprised by how charming and attractive they find each other, Violet begins to receive increasingly more terrorizing texts – or ‘drops’ – on her phone providing her with instructions to kill Henry that she must carry out or witness a hooded figure – who has invaded her home – murder both her son (Jacob Robinson) and babysitting sister (Violett Beane) via the security cameras within her home.

Director Christopher Landon – perhaps best known for his work within the “Happy Death Day” series, as well as the surprisingly entertaining Freaky (2020) – delivers more of what filmgoers have come to expect from him here. After an effective setup that seems to suggest that a wildly complex caper is being committed at Violet’s expense, the film devolves into little more than a series of double-takes and red herrings that are no substitute for the actual tension and suspense that is sorely missing here.

Meghann Fahy in “Drop.” Photo Credit: Bernard Walsh – © 2025 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The script by Jillian Jacobs and Christopher Roach is more concerned with the motivations behind the characters and subsequently using those same motives to misdirect the audience toward false turns and twists than simply telling a more straightforward thriller without the conceit of trick camera angles or inverted perspective shots or even unnecessary “gotcha” moments. More often than is needed, the film plays more like a “reel” intended as an audition for someone’s next project, rather than its own unique piece.

While Fahy and Sklenar do their ablest best to hold the narrative together, there is little they can do to make the stakes mean anything. There simply just is no solid reason to invest in the fate of any of the characters within the film. Only Violet’s son (Jacob Robinson) is given the remotest of likeably qualities, and that leads to very little in the way of investment on the audience’s part as to whether any of the film’s main characters survive unscathed.

When all is said and done, Christopher Landon’s Drop is little more than an unfulfilling serving of a warmed-over thriller with little on the side in terms of originality and even less provided as entertaining garnish to a not-too-palatable narrative dish.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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