There are a lot of different ways you can tell a story about two people going on a first date. The way that the film Drop tells this story is not exactly the way I would have expected, it didn’t turn out so good for me of the people involved in said date in the movie either. Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach have written a few awful screenplays between them. It goes to figure they would write another contrived mess of a script for this mystery thriller.

Violet (Meghann Fahy) is the single mother of one, a son. Toby (Jacob Robinson). They have gone through a traumatic incident before involving her husband and his father, but they have recovered their past trauma. So much so that she has decided to date once again. She meets a man who is a photographer, Henry (Brandon Sklenar) at a posh Chicago restaurant called Palate for dinner and drinks. Or though she thought. While at the restaurant she gets a series of text messages from an unknown number. The person behind the messages somehow cloned her phone while she’s been at the restaurant and wants her  to do a mission for them. It involves her date.

This film uses a few things to get its story across to the viewer. One of the most obvious is the text messages are shown on screen for the audience to see and react to. These messages definitely will get a reaction out of the viewers. The texts give instruction to the Fahy character. While all these messages are constantly coming in, Fahy makes decisions that are equally obvious. This is where the story gets very contrived. Using things like a watch, or twenty dollar bill and excuses she makes the situation worse for herself and those watching. I must have put my hand to my head in frustration at least a half a dozen times while watching this film.

Christopher Landon is a director known for films such as Freaky, Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U. The horror genre is his thing, but these also have a comedic element to them. This movie has some of the horror elements he’s known for, but nothing about this film is funny despite the occasional chuckle I had while watching it. He combined with the writers Jacobs and Roach fall back on so many horror tropes I’ve seen before. They make it obvious to shake my head and their decisions. One such decision is when an electrical tech guy shows up at Fahy’s character’s home to check the meter. He then appears later in a key role. Once again very obvious. That is just one example. There are many I could point to that made me shake my head.

The movie is mainly set at two locations: the home of Fahy’s character and the restaurant/bar the date takes place at. These locations are where the film actually has some creative things. The cinematography is fantastic. A one location story is hard to make interesting, but the restaurant is used brilliantly. The camera work is fantastic. This setting moves around for the viewers watching it. All the angles are used exquisitely. Included is a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline.Using an application the Fahy character is able to see her house and all the rooms within it via home security cameras. These cameras play a huge part in creating drama and a stressful situation for her throughout the movie. These two things kept the film interesting despite all the contrivances in the story.

The cast of this movie mostly focuses on the Fahy and Sklenar characters, but there are a lot of supporting characters that fill out this cast. Some of them are good characters and others are very annoying. After the first time I saw them appear on screen I was already sick of them. Then they kept coming back again and again because of the nature of their role in the film. I hate crapping on anybody specifically, I can’t live with myself if I didn’t mention how bad Jeffery Self was as the server of the main couple on the date. I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him so much. The rest of the cast was serviceable for the most part. I mainly liked both Fahy and Sklenar in these roles. I know both of them from two very good streaming shows I watch regularly. They transition nicely into movie stars for this subpar mystery thriller.

There are a few things about Drop that are good, but nothing can make this a redeeming film for me. The end is one of them, but that was a little too late for me. The rest of the movie was filled with obvious things I’ve seen many times before and quite a few contrivances that had me shaking my head for most of the film. The cast aside from the waiter played by Self were not bad. The cinematography and camera work were the best parts about this horror film. They added an element that made this movie watchable despite an overall super experience for me. The filmmaker Landon and the cast deserved a better script to work with. I wish more producers and not let behind the scenes people fall back on such obviously bad decisions, creatively. Unfortunately for me this was a prime example of how this year has gone so far, very badly.

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen