Spoilers should go to sleep.

This is one of those films that would work best if you’d go in without knowing anything. However if you didn’t know a thing, you might miss it. So, be glad to know that it does make for a great, even excellent film to watch, regardless if you’re aware of the twist. Horror comedies can be good, but they excel only when they manage to blend in both genres seamlessly.

(Credit: New Line Cinema)

Companion (2025) is written and directed by Drew Hancock. Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) are a young couple on a weekend getaway with friends. Coming along are Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). They’re all invited by icy queen Kat (Megan Suri) to stay at the lavish but isolated place of her shady creepy boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend). Iris is concerned about fitting in with Josh’s friends. Eli and Patrick are inviting enough, but she gets disapproving looks and disses from Kat and creepy looks from Sergey. Josh seems to wave off all her worries at little too easy.

Even a casual movie viewer would know something is up. It’s only once circumstances conveniently leave Iris alone with Sergey at the edge of the lake that she gets assaulted by him. It’s not a coincidence that she’s already noticed a knife on her pocket either. As the rest of the friends have gathered on the living room, their lively banter is interrupted by seeing Iris coming in, covered in blood. But as she tries to explain what’s going on and she nervously stammers, Josh simply asks her to go to sleep.

And this is where the real movie begins. The big twist, which you might have gathered from the trailer, is that Iris is a companion – an AI robot that serves the needs of their user. What we have now, is a murder plot comedy that will get bloody. We also have the real nightmare of AI scenarios. The issue is not if AI can malfunction. That it will, eventually, and we’ll then hope that we have safeguards and course-correction to prevent it. The real issue is whether it can be misused, something that this movie amply demonstrates.

However, there’s an obvious allegory here. It’s human toxic traits at its worst that cause the most harm. It’s people that believe themselves to be the “nice” person and that the world owes them some sort of reserved throne at the top of society that can easily cause our downfall. So even as gory and violent as things get, the real tragedy is that it’s not whether our technology is ready for the future but the fact that we’re not. Yeah, I know it sounds real cheesy but we’re living in the lowest common denominator world right now.

It works rather well. It is topical, satirical and scary to a lot of audiences. There is romance in it too, although a lot of it will be tragic. It is not air tight, there’s a couple of forced outcomes that I thought could have gone another hundred different ways first, but then again I can’t deny it’s entertaining throughout. The ending feels like it was pre-written to end this way, but I can’t deny it being cathartic and satisfying.

Highly recommended. Thrilling and rather smoothly executed, it should be what the doctor ordered to a lot of people. Yes, there’s some AI forecasting on it, but I was more impressed with the accuracy of the entitled toxic personalities that already exists. It’s more of a satire on flawed humans than perfect technology. It’s not perfect, but it is entertaining from beginning to end. Well worth a watch or more.

That will do for now.