Vague Visages’ Companion review contains minor spoilers. Drew Hancock’s 2025 movie features Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid and Lukas Gage. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Companion gives the distinct impression that writer/director Drew Hancock has been paying close attention to the women around him. The filmmaker seems to have taken their biggest complaints to heart for his feature debut through a wild and consistently entertaining premise that sucks viewers in regardless of gender. Plenty of male filmmakers have tried and failed to present a Strong Female Character without doing the necessary work to figure out what that kind of perspective looks like. Evil Dead Rise (2023) immediately springs to mind as a recent example, with director Lee Cronin utilizing a pregnant woman as his protagonist without bothering to learn anything about pregnancy first. Companion isn’t trying to tick any diversity boxes. It has a unique hook and a committed lead performance, alongside gallons of blood and guts (which will be plenty for horror fans to sink their teeth into), but the unflinchingly feminist viewpoint is what really sets it apart. 

Jack Quaid — who, between Companion and 2022’s Scream, is fast gaining a reputation for winningly portraying loser incel/MRA types — stars as Josh, a lonely and young man who lives in a sparsely decorated one-bedroom apartment and lusts after his sole female friend, Kat (Never Have I Ever star Megan Suri) — a woman who’s understandably repulsed by the very idea of anything romantic happening between them. She also openly judges Josh for essentially purchasing a girlfriend in the form of Sophie Thatcher’s fembot Iris (or “fuckbot,” as Kat harshly dismisses her). The marketing campaign for Companion has cleverly hidden the fact that Iris is a robot for the most part, but there are plenty of hints, including when she tears up while watching her arm burning. Regardless if viewers know the complete premise going in, Hancock has tons of fun dropping breadcrumbs. 

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Hancock’s assured debut opens with a direct nod to The Stepford Wives (2004) as Josh and Iris meet-cute in a brightly lit supermarket, with both characters dressed in vibrant primary colors. Later, when they head to a remote lakeside cabin, Iris carries the couple’s suitcases up to the house. And once Josh gets tired of listening to Thatcher’s protagonist gushing about how much she adores him, he simply tells her to go to sleep, and Iris dutifully obeys. Naturally, with a movie like Companion, the inciting incident must revolve around the robot realizing what it really is. But Hancock subverts expectations, building to a thrilling climax in which grisly violence is established much earlier than it typically would be, thanks to one solitary act of self-defense. It might be delivered through blunt force, but Hancock’s take is razor-sharp. And besides, it has been well-established at this point that subtlety doesn’t work when discussing gender politics.

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Companion is fiercely, unabashedly feminist. This is Thatcher’s film, with the Yellowjackets breakout confidently building on her impactful performance in last year’s otherwise disposable Heretic through an equally accomplished turn that’s just as impressive physically as it is emotionally. In less capable hands, Iris could be a bit of a blank slate, solely there to react to the human characters, but Thatcher’s portrayal is brimming with inner turmoil and confusion over her place in the world. Tons of comparisons have been made between Companion and the Terminator franchise, for obvious reasons, but Thatcher imbues Iris’ quest to survive with a sense of desperation and self-preservation that’s unavoidably human, and it will be sadly recognizable to female viewers.

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Josh isn’t an outright villain right from the start in Companion. Much like Quaid’s entitled Scream character, Richie Kirsch, he initially presents as a schlubby, well-meaning Nice Guy™. Hancock wisely takes his time dropping hints that this dude is a bit of an asshole, culminating in another character (played by a scene-stealing Harvey Guillén, of What We Do in the Shadows fame) pointing out that treating anybody badly, even a robot, just isn’t acceptable. Guillén is one half of a sweet gay couple, with Lukas Gage playing his studly boyfriend, Patrick. Their relationship is arguably the most intriguing of the three represented onscreen (Kat is in a casual, sugar baby-style relationship with an oily Russian, Sergey, played with scenery-chewing aplomb by British actor Rupert Friend, rocking a truly terrible mullet), if only because these two actually respect and love each other. As depressing as it is to acknowledge, the fact that this isn’t yet another example of the regrettably prolific “kill your gays” trope is also worth celebrating.

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Companion was beautifully shot by Eli Born, who lensed the similarly gorgeous Super Dark Times (2017), as well as the recent Hellraiser reboot (2022) and The Boogeyman (2023). Although the action isn’t solely confined to the lake house, Hancock makes good use of the scenic location, with sweeping shots of the surrounding area displaying how isolated it is while also making it clear why a group of friends would so readily agree to spend the weekend there (a spooky cabin in the woods this is not). The world of Companion is not that different from our own, with a self-driving car (which Iris sweetly thanks before hopping out upon arrival) and smartphones featuring heavily. Naturally, though, technology isn’t to be trusted and much of the central conflict arises from Iris trying to essentially fix her own settings so she can finally take control of her life.

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Again, it’s not the deepest metaphor, but Hancock’s light touch and sharp script, alongside Thatcher’s skilled performance, elevate Companion above other similarly-themed tech horror movies from M3GAN (2022)to Subservience (2024) — both of which notably feature paper-thin female protagonists and antagonists. The writer-director manages to establish Iris’ mistreatment at the hands of her owner/boyfriend without feeling the need to revel in any punishing, stomach-churning violence against her, with much of the worst stuff implied, often through the way Josh interacts with and speaks down to her. The protagonist is unequivocally Iris, with Quaid’s character rushing to keep up with her unless he can quite literally turn her intelligence down to 0%. It’s an apt representation of how women dumb themselves down to protect fragile male egos, but also a ruthless dissection of what kind of partner a man might choose if he could tamper down unique everything about her first (Iris is loyal, agrees with everything Josh says, is always up for sex, constantly smiling, etc.)

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Companion is also just a damn good horror movie: it’s surprising, packed with jaw-dropping shocks and boasts a quartet of three-dimensional characters that viewers might actually care about. Hancock’s take on the basest male fantasies about women is also slyly funny, and he takes no prisoners, especially with Josh’s characterization. Companion also features the use of a kitchen utensil as part of a grisly kill that’s never been seen in a horror movie before, if memory serves (take that, cheese grater). Given all that and the use of Goo Goo Dolls’ 1998 smash hit “Iris” during a pivotal scene, what more could you possibly want from a January release?

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

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