Drop Is a Nifty B-Movie That's Like One of M. Night Shyamalan's Thrillers, But Good

Apr 12, 2025

Drop is unique in that it’s a theatrically released studio film where I did not recognize a single actor or actress. That’s not unusual for low-budget art films, but even the obscure, low-budget slop I wrote about for The Fractured Mirror, my upcoming book on American movies about filmmaking, has at least one at least semi-famous name and face. They’ll have a cameo from Michael Nouri, Carmen Electra, or some other C-lister.

The only familiar name in Drop’s credits was Christopher Landon, whose dad Michael starred in Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven. He’s a Nepo Baby made good. He died young, in his mid-fifties, yet still achieved the formidable feat of starring in three hit television shows.

Though a mere forty-nine years young, Landon has racked up an impressive filmography. He cowrote five of the Paranormal Activities sequels/spin-offs in addition to the well-received recent Heart Eyes and directed Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, and Freaky.

Landon’s winning streak continues with Drop. It’s a rock-solid thriller that will send film fans on a highway to heavy. It’s an entertainment bonanza that will keep you engaged for 98 minutes.

The other famous names in the credits are Michael Bay, a prominent purveyor of big-budget slop, and Jason Blum, a hip young horror maven whose production company Blumhouse has pumped out zeitgeist-capturing hit after hit.

The premise is the star in Drop. One of the reasons I was grateful that this won the weekly poll is that it looks like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. More specifically, it resembles Trap, which I don’t love despite being terrible and ridiculous and completely removed from anything resembling life on our planet; I love it because it’s so bonkers and bad. I haven’t gotten Trap out of my head and am looking for any excuse to watch and write about it again.

I was unfamiliar with star Meghann Fahy beforehand, but Drop turned me into a fan. The television and theater veteran carries the film on her elegant shoulders. She single-handedly makes a preposterous plot feel real.

Fahy stars as Violet, a widow, psychiatrist, and single mother whose abusive husband died via suicide. She’s anxious and tentative about pursuing romance after all the trauma she has endured, but she nevertheless makes a date at a fancy restaurant in downtown Chicago with photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar).

Henry has a cool, glamorous job and looks like an underwear model. He seems too good to be true. The movie seems to be setting him up to be the villain, or at least a phony, but Drop has all manner of red herrings.

The evening starts pleasantly, if awkwardly enough. Our resourceful heroine banters awkwardly with Richard (Reed Diamond), a Poindexter on a blind date that will not go well. She gets a drink to calm her nerves from Cara (Gabrielle Ryan Spring Gabrielle), a hip, sexy bartender who expresses a suspiciously intense interest in Violet’s date.

As a former Chicagoan, I have a special affection for movies set in my old hometown. I was hoping that our heroine and her date would have hot dogs (no ketchup!), Italian Beef for appetizers and deep-dish pizza for the entree. I would also be satisfied by a cameo from Mike Ditka or Studs Terkel’s ghost.

Unfortunately, that does not happen, but the flamboyant, comic relief waiter does talk extensively about taking classes at Second City. That’s why he’s so obnoxious and won’t stop cracking wise despite his customers never expressing even the tiniest bit of amusement at his antics.

Violet’s anxiety spikes when she receives drops on her phone from a mystery villain whose infinite evil is only matched by his love of memes. The technologically adept creep uses some of the most popular and ubiquitous meme formats to taunt, torment, and control Violet.

It’d almost be easier to single out memes he doesn’t use than those he does. They do not use the Steve Buscemi with a skateboard iconically inquiring “How do you do, fellow kids?” from 30 Rock and the meme of Drake expressing approval and disapproval through hand gestures.

Violet is told that she must kill her date, or a masked gunman at her home will murder her child. Violet REALLY does not want to kill Henry. He’s very handsome, and killing someone you’ve been flirting with online for three months is poor first-date etiquette.

Henry informs Violet, and by extension, the audience, that the drop had to come from someone within fifty feet of them. That means that the drops are coming from someone within the restaurant. But who?

Drop alternates between romantic semi-comedy involving Violet and Henry’s date and Violet’s attempts to discover who is sending the sinister drops and how to stop him before her date and/or her son meet a violent end.

The film is an awkward romantic comedy about a woman with a dark past who opens herself up to the possibility of love and human connection. It is also a claustrophobic thriller about an innocent woman being terrorized by twenty-first-century technology.

I kept expecting twists and revelations that never came. I thought that the dead husband wouldn’t actually be dead. I similarly suspected that Violet would have a badass secret history as a CIA agent or super-soldier and that Henry would similarly turn out to be something different and darker than he initially appears.

None of that is true, however. For a gimmicky thriller, Drop is surprisingly straightforward. It recalls Trap in largely limiting the action to a single dynamic setting. The stadium where M. Night Shyamalan’s explosively talented and charismatic daughter, who rocketed to Taylor Swift-level superstardom thanks to her superstar-making performance in her daddy’s movie, is performing is too big to feel claustrophobic, but that’s not true of the fancy restaurant where most of Drop happens.

Fahy delivers a compelling performance made even more impressive by the fact that she spends much of the film responding to her cell phone rather than other actors. It’s a gutsy portrayal of a woman desperate to hold onto what’s important in the face of a bizarre and unrelenting threat.

Drop’s climax is anti-climactic. The identity of the villain and their reason for sabotaging Violet’s first date in ages through surveillance, terror, and murder threats are disappointingly generic. To put things in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster terms, they’re stock.