In my personal opinion, 2024 was a great year for horror movies. I came away from it with so many new favorites, literally a handful of new movies sitting right among some of my almost-lifelong favorites. It was exciting, inspiring, and on some level, healing. I don't know if there will ever be another year like that for me again.
I haven't been nearly as excited for much of anything in 2025...the main movie I'm looking forward to seeing is Wicked: For Good and that's not until Thanksgiving-time. And if the rest of the year drags on anything like January has, we may never get there.
There are a couple of things in the coming weeks that I'm interested in. Of course my Valentine's-Day-loving self will be seeing Heart Eyes, and if you know me at all, you probably know how much I love Longlegs, so The Monkey is obviously a priority. Still, though, it doesn't seem like much compared to last year.
But, given that I'm always in need of a spooky escape, I decided to take a chance on a movie I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to see: Companion.
My issue with this movie, prior to seeing it, was just the fact that I feel the "AI Gone Bad" concept has been done to death at this point. The concept of a female robot gaining sentience and killing people just made me think of M3GAN. And while I didn't hate M3GAN, it was an incredibly predictable movie and definitely more of a "horror training wheels" type of thing that I feel appeals more to younger, up-and-coming horror fans. I honestly expected Companion to simply be M3GAN but with more adult themes.
However, I found myself pleasantly surprised.
Companion introduces us to Iris and Josh, a couple who, seemingly, meet one day in a grocery store. (Which is a little confusing at first because we as the audience, at least those of us who have seen the trailers, know that Iris is a robot.) They become instantly devoted to each other and Iris, in a monologue, tells us that the two happiest moments in her life were when she first met Josh, and when she killed him.
We then cut to Josh and Iris on their way to visit friends of Josh's, who are staying at the lavish, secluded home of the very rich, and very married, boyfriend of Josh's longtime friend Kat. Iris laments that Josh's friends, and Kat in particular, dislike her, but Josh reassures her and some awkward interactions ensue. At this point, if someone had gone into this movie completely blind, unaware of what Iris truly is, they'd probably think she was just very socially awkward, or possibly neurodivergent in some way. That's probably the only issue I really have with this movie, that we as an audience are treated as though we're not in on it for the first half hour or so, even though the movie's entire marketing strategy, at least that I saw, was based on Iris being a robot.
Soon, though, things take a turn, and Sergei attempts to sexually assault Iris, on Kat's insistence that "that's what she's for", and Iris winds up killing him. When she arrives back to the house covered in blood, Josh and his friends are flabbergasted, or so it seems, thinking she malfunctioned somehow, as the not so "big reveal" comes that Iris is not, in fact, human.
The more interesting part of the reveal, though, is that Iris did not simply react to the possibility of sexual assault by Sergei. The whole thing was planned by Josh and Kat, as a way to off Sergei and take his money, without worry of the blame falling on any particular person. Josh hacked Iris's programming and heightened her aggression, overriding whatever safety precaution that kept her from being able to kill or harm anyone. This felt truly diabolical to me and even though Iris is not human, it felt violating in some way to know that she was orchestrated to take the fall for murder, by someone who claimed to love her, for the simple reason of pure greed. Iris, also, until this moment, had no idea that she was a robot, either, which makes it sadder.
This is where it gets really interesting, as normally in these types of movies, the AI character immediately becomes the villain, and we want to see them stopped, unplugged, shut down, whatever you wish to call it. However, this is not the case with Iris. Josh and Kat come off as horrible people pretty much from the jump, and I absolutely could not wait to watch them die, upon finding out their true intentions.
The ensuing chase/kill scenes aren't necessarily anything earth-shattering for the genre, but it is both a lot of fun and very empowering to watch Iris attempt to take control of her own self for once, ramping her intelligence up to 100%, and figuring out how to use the fact that she's a robot to her own advantage and outsmart the humans. It's a real testament to how empowering it can be to find out someone doesn't have your best interests at heart, and finding the person you're meant to be without being an extension of that person any longer. There's a statement in here about taking back your power and becoming your most authentic self, and also about bodily autonomy in general. It may be strange to say the robot was the most human character in the movie, but Iris truly was. Upon realizing what she is, she still doesn't just back down and accept her fate, or accept that she's worth any less than the humans around her, who are, with the possible exception of one of the friends, Eli, ultimately terrible people. Manipulation is manipulation, after all...and Josh's willingness to frame Iris for murder was every bit as disgusting as it would have been if she were a human woman. The way he gets more unhinged and objectifies Iris more and more as the story goes on, is something I think a lot of people who have been in crappy relationships will be able to relate to, and speaks volumes about what the human race and its priorities have become.
All in all, Companion exceeded my every expectation and I'm very happy I saw it. While I went in expecting a more adult M3GAN, I wound up with so much more than that. This movie is a super fun ride, and it definitely has some real heart to it as well, and some messages we as a society likely need to hear right now. There's a part of me that left this movie feeling very empowered. Also, if you're an American Horror Story fan like I am, I feel as though you may really enjoy this one. For some reason I kept finding myself thinking of the peak seasons of AHS, melding different parts of the horror genre together, sprinkling it with just enough humor, and reminding us that, at the end of the day, humans and their vices are the real horror.
And I have to say, I love that Valloween movies seem to be becoming a thing. I could definitely get used to seeing spooky love stories emerge every year during the season.
I can't wait to see what the rest of the year will bring for the horror genre.
Stay spooky, my friends!
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