They say never judge a book by its cover. When I saw the trailer for Companion, I was less than impressed and thought, here we go, another horror that will try and be different. How wrong was I? This is not what the trailer is selling. In fact, this film offers so much more than we are led to believe. At the same time, I will try to talk about the movie without giving anything away because that’s the best way to approach it. It is the best fun I have had with a film in quite a while.

Iris and Josh are a couple very much in love, who head to the remote home of a Russian billionaire for a weekend with friends, including Josh’s friend, Kat, who Iris believes doesn’t like her, Eli and his partner, the handsome Patrick. Things go awry when Sergey, the Russian, shows his affection towards Iris, which triggers a chain of events that leads to carnage.

Making his feature debut as a director, writer Drew Hancock has taken a weekend away for a simple plot device and shaken it up to the core. This film is relentlessly inventive with its journey while at the same time using the traits of traditional thrillers and horrors. It starts as a simple love story that turns into several genres, and you find yourself both surprised and pleased with its outcomes. This offers so much more than a genre-bending movie.

The characters, while sparse, are well-defined. These are not just one-dimensional personas there for the sake of removing them. They live and breathe, and each has a backstory that makes you more involved with what happens. From Kat, we discover that he is having an affair with Sergey, who everyone believes is a gangster, due to his wealth and his beautiful home near a lake. Eli and Patrick have a loving relationship that is bourne from their meeting at a costume party. When then have Iris and Josh. Meeting in a supermarket was love at first sight. Then the truth comes out, and not everything seems as it seems.

The beauty of this film, from the producer of the excellent Barbarians, is that it has so many twists and turns that your head will end up spinning. Some are a little convenient while others make perfect sense, but you can forgive it for any contrivances it may have, as you are having so much fun with it. It also has a dry, dark sense of humour that runs throughout, and it gets a little grisly in places. It does so with tongue rammed in its cheek, and you laugh while grimacing.

The performances are terrific, too. Rupert Friend is nicely sleazy as Sergey, while Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, is a perfect mix of Mr Nice Guy with a dark heart. Sophie Thatcher, last seen as one of the girls trapped in Hugh Grant’s house in Heretic, is the real star. She has to be the girl next door while going through many situations that would be hard for anyone to cope with. She has a fabulous screen presence and is definitely one to watch in the future.

Companion is a blast. If you like horror, it delivers. If you like a thriller, it delivers. If you want a social comment about empowerment, it delivers. It is a bundle of surprises wrapped in a well-made, well-acted movie that will definitely be a cult favourite for its unique vision, but I hope it will attract a large audience because it deserves it. A real pleasant surprise.

4 out of 5

Director: Drew Hancock

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend, Jaboukie Young-White, Matthew J. McCarthy, Marc Menchaca, Woody Fu, Ashley Lambert

Written by Drew Hancock

Running Time: 97 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 31st January 2025