Companion Review (2021) Worth Watching?

In a post apocalyptic world, survivors must battle more than each other.

Companion was directed by John Darbonne and stars Anna Flynn, Marcus Anthony and Stephen Brodie (from Baphomet, The Rake, Ghost Note and Blood Sombrero).

We're in the dark, here.

Two big things that need to happen for horror movies to work are that things need to make sense, and everything that happens needs to be realistic. None of the scares will work if these two criteria are not met. An audience can believe the most ridiculous situations, alien encounters, the dead rising from the grave, vampires, if things make sense. The questions and situations a movie raises need to have answers and explanations. A little girl acting weird, possessed by the devil. Children in a town keep going missing, an ancient evil that feeds on children is taking them. If things make sense, the horror works.

Not a lot in Companion made sense. Everything that happens, just happens out of nowhere for no real reason. Every time a character is in danger, it comes from out of the blue, and is resolved out of the blue with no damage. Things jump around a lot in this movie as well, the pacing is off somehow. I found myself saying a lot, “Wait, now how did this happen?”. It was almost like things were missing, I kind of wanted to rewind a couple of times to see if I did happen to miss something. It was all very choppy, like they lost a couple of pages of the script here and there while shooting. The dialogue was also a bit melodramatic, and didn’t really fit with what was going on. Many times it was long and boring with some high end philosophical references that were just like, meh. It’s supposed to deepen the audience’s connection to the characters and make them more relatable and likable, but all it really does is mess with the pacing.

The characters weren’t all that smart or deep either. Nothing they did made any sense and they made some of the dumbest choices, even for horror movie standards and specifically for living in this post apocalyptic and violent world. Just a lot of what they actually do doesn’t make sense for the setting. They just seem to be thrown into this situation and not really know how to deal with it, as opposed to living in it for years and being veterans of this.

Nothing is terribly scary or gory either. There is a major lack of tension through the entire movie that really lessens the impact of pretty much every scare. The creatures are kind of cool, but somehow lose their creepiness as the movie progresses. The special effects were pretty good, and the gore was realistic, just not that scary. When it all finally resolves, you just don't really care. There were a couple of cool parts to redeem this a little, but overall Companion is a meh.