COMPANION Is Full of Surprises

COMPANION (Blu-ray)

2025 / 97 min

From Warner Bros #InPartnershipwithWB

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😺

Part of me wishes I could’ve watched Companion without any prior knowledge of the premise. But I get it…you can’t market a sci-fi horror thriller without at least dropping a hint that its main character, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), is a robot created and programmed to be a loving soulmate. Still, even the Blu-ray cover tends to undermine the big revelation writer-director Drew Hancock masterfully builds up to during the first act.

On the other hand, Hancock has plenty of other surprises up his sleeve, most of which the viewer isn’t likely to see coming. More importantly, the basic plot subverts our assumptions that Companion is yet-another tale of AI gone bad. So no…Iris doesn’t become an unstoppable Terminator or malicious Weyland Yutani android. In fact, she’s the main protagonist.

Shopping in Stepford.

To avoid spoiling some of the movie’s wild, wonderful twists and turns, I’m gonna refrain from going into any more story details. I will say that Companion features a consistently compelling narrative, excellent overall performances (especially Thatcher) and well-realized characters, most of whom, at one point or another, are not who they seem to be when first introduced. This is all largely thanks to a well-constructed, intelligent screenplay that also addresses such timely issues as toxic relationships, personal autonomy and, of course, the ramifications of AI technology.

That’s not to say Companion is some kind of serious cautionary tale. Though certainly offering ideas and themes that are worth pondering, it’s mainly a wildly entertaining sci-fi thrill ride. Suspenseful, violent and sometimes wickedly funny, it’s a fast-paced film that doesn’t wear out its welcome with unnecessary peripherals, building to a satisfying climax and resolution. So far, this is one of the best of the year.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Companion: I Feel Therefore I Am focuses on Sophie Thatcher’s role as Iris; Companion: Love, Eli features Harvey Gullen discussing his character; AI Horror includes details related to the special effects.

DIGITAL COPY

Stay Out of THE BASEMENT

THE BASEMENT (Blu-ray)

2018 / 88 min

From Uncork’d Entertainment

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat

The Basement is essentially torture porn, and like The Passion of the Christ, nearly the entire film consists of extreme torment being inflicted on one guy. The only real difference is one purports to be a horror movie, while the other is considered required viewing for some Christians (though I’m still not sure how watching Jesus in agony for two hours brings them closer to him). 

I don’t think I’d consider The Basement to be horror, either. Sadism for its own sake isn’t horror. Even the film that came to define torture porn for modern audiences (Hostel) managed to instill enough atmospheric dread to qualify as horror. But here, we’re mostly just curious about what awful thing its main character endures next, and how convincing the make-up effects are.

The victim is Craig Owen (Cayleb Long), a famous musician who’s running an errand for his wife, Kelly (Mischa Barton), when he’s abducted by a serial killer known as The Gemini (Jackson Davis). Craig is bound to a school desk in a dank basement while his captor repeatedly adopts different personalities and guises, each who address him as Bill (The Gemini’s actual name). Some of these personalities condemn “Bill” for his murders, others assault him gruesomely and graphically.

Extreme detention.

But while the make-up effects are indeed pretty convincing, the film isn’t scary or suspenseful. It’s relentlessly talky between torture scenes and serves up a protagonist who isn't interesting or engaging enough to invest in…just a rich guy cheating on his wife. Speaking of which, at least a third of the narrative focuses on Kelly, who laments that Craig hasn’t come home but never appears worried something bad has happened to him. That, coupled with the dull chats she has with her bestie, Bianca, pretty much telegraphs the twist ending writer-directors Brian M. Conley & Nathan Ives are obviously proud of.

The performances are mostly perfunctory, save for Davis, who’s admittedly impressive adopting all those different personas (12 of them, to be exact). Other than that, The Basement is a movie that’s far more in love with its torture sequences and predictable denouement than creating anything resembling true horror.

EXTRA KIBBLES

ALTERNATE OPENING - With a bonus several head for your troubles.

MUSIC VIDEO

SLINGSHOT Plots a Familiar Course

SLINGSHOT (Blu-ray)

2024 / 108 min

FROM DECAL RELEASING

Review by Princess Pepper😼

Here’s another sci-fi thriller that makes space look like an awful place, where losing your marbles is the biggest obstacle impeding a successful mission. As such, Slingshot ain’t bad, though it does evoke an increasing sense of deja vu.

John (Casey Affleck) is on a lengthy mission to Saturn’s moon, Titan, with two crewmates, Nash (Tomer Capone) and Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne). Being increasingly put in and out of hypersleep begins to take a psychological toll. At first, Nash becomes increasingly unhinged, exacerbated when the ship suffers damage. Meanwhile, John has hallucinations of the girl he left behind, Zoe (Emily Beecham), and peppered throughout the narrative are numerous flashbacks of their relationship.

As Nash repeatedly undermines Frank’s authority by trying to convince John they should turn back and return to Earth, the Captain himself displays behavior that threatens them both. Presented from John’s point-of-view, Slingshot does a decent job depicting its characters’ struggles with sanity and whether or not John's experiences are real or an illusion, which sets up a few pretty good narrative curveballs during the second half. 

Casey politely endures another Event Horizon anecdote.

However, the mental impact of extended time in space has been explored in plenty of other movies, sometimes more authentically (Ad Astra), more sensationally (Pandorum) or more cerebrally (Solaris)...to the point where Slingshot’s inevitable twist ending is more of an expectation than a surprise. And while I understand their importance in terms of character development, the numerous flashback sequences grow intrusive and stall the momentum at times.

Other than that, Slingshot is a decent sci-fi thriller with some interesting bits of foreshadowing that become obvious with hindsight, perhaps making it worth watching a second time just to see how they contribute to the denouement. At no point does the film reinvent the wheel - or really even try - but it’s entertaining in the moment.