To borrow from Companion, let me be premature in this review: Companion is a brilliant movie challenging what the horror genre is while still providing a self-contained, enjoyable viewing experience.
I’ve laid bare the gist of this review, shown my hand. Do you feel uncompelled to finish this — do you want to click away? Or do you want to know more about what I have to say about Companion, see if I can stick the landing?
If you’ve made it this far, then you are proof that perhaps being quick to the draw isn’t the worst thing, despite what some critics may have you believe. Before viewers could even sit in their theater’s plush seats to watch the movie, Companion received criticism for revealing the movie’s “twist” in its promotions. This criticism continued after the film released in theaters.
That twist is that Iris, Companion’s leading lady played by Sophie Thatcher, is a robot. Or, more accurately described within the movie, a companion robot — or “fuckbot” — engineered to provide a completely customizable servant for incels, the only constant being the robot’s unwavering loyalty to its owner. Iris is the companion robot belonging to Josh (Jack Quaid), her boyfriend/owner.
The two are set to spend the weekend at a remote cabin with some of their friends, including Kat (Megan Suri) and Sergey (Rupert Friend). The day after their arrival, Iris finds herself alone on a beach with Sergey, who sexually assaults her. At this, Iris bludgeons Sergey with a nearby liquor bottle. When he regains his whereabouts, Sergey begins strangling Iris. She produces a knife from her pocket, then skewers Sergey’s neck, killing him.
When she returns to the cabin drenched in Sergey’s blood, she confesses, professing that Sergey was going to kill her. As Iris works herself up, Josh commands, “Iris, go to sleep,” at which point her eyes roll over to white.
Based on the aforementioned reviews criticizing the movie’s so-called premature reveal of this twist, it would seem these critics relieved themselves of their duties here. They kicked back, tipped their critic-hats over their eyes and simply fell asleep — it’s as if their engagement with the movie ends here, and any reference to the plot thereafter has the same integrity of asking a classmate what the reading was about.
I find it lethargic, myopic and even pigheaded to suggest that, because a movie reveals one twist early, either a) there are no proceeding twists or b) there is nothing worth paying attention to beyond that twist.
I may go as far as to say that any movie crutching on a single twist is a bad movie. So would it not be poor movie-viewing to clock out after the first twist? Certainly, not all twists are created equal. The robot twist in Companion is seen as primary because it changes how we view our protagonist.
But introducing the twist early is only the first way in which Companion sets out to reshape the horror genre. Reveals like this shouldn’t automatically be considered as apex twists. By unveiling Iris’s identity from the trailers, shouldn’t viewers take the hint and reconsider that, rather than the movie’s climax, this fact is actually just world-building?
If one equips this lens, then it becomes apparent that the movie cleverly uses a robot to portray the human experiences of abusive relationships. The twist’s significance is not “Wow, she was a robot all along,” but, rather, “Wow, what’s being said by the fact that an abusive relationship is being portrayed with the victim as a robot?”
It would be irresponsible movie viewership to call it quits at the world-building. But, if one does, then it’s understandable why they might then leave scathing reviews. It’s only the first act, so, naturally, there isn’t a satisfying arc. This should be a sign that one should reserve judgment. The movie’s true themes may only be accessed with the necessary first-steps of world-building aside.
I’ve alluded to my analysis of Companion as a portrait of abusive relationships. This interpretation begins before Companion, considering it in the context of Barbarian, created by the same team. Both of these movies breathe life into the long-standing history of the female monster.
The female monster may be defined as a literary or mythological construction that questions where the reader’s sympathies lie; yes, she’s a monster, but is she not first and foremost a victim of some other, greater force? Why do we dislike monsters -- is it simply because they are monsters, or is it because we mostly see monsters doing bad things, like Godzilla destroying cities?
Barbarian presents a sympathetic female monster with one key twist: She’s human. While you may not believe so due to her shocking stature, astounding athleticism and beastly looks, Mother in Barbarian is a “normal” woman, or as normal as a woman can be for someone who hails from decades of incest and being raised in an underground sex dungeon/daycare.
This adds a unique question to the narrative of female monsters. Before, there was a certain degree of separation because the reader is human whereas the female monsters are not. This beckons a not-my-problem attitude. They’re monsters, I’m human — why should I care? It also absolves the reader of any culpability because there’s an assumed gap between the realms of monster and human; we on the human side assume that wrongdoing is a one-way street flowing from the monster realm to the human realm.
Indisputably, Iris is a robot. However, she is still a departure from the traditional female monster because she is only a robot according to her metal, wires-and-all insides. Unlike other female monsters, Mother included, Iris is the only iteration who is made by humans for humans. She holds a necessary human trait — sociability — that the other female monsters lack. In my eyes, this cements her as human, for most intents and purposes.
Before, I asked, “What’s being said by the fact that an abusive relationship is being portrayed with the victim as a robot?” The answer is not novel in the sense that it’s inconceivable but in the sense that it hasn’t been done before. By making the robotic Iris the victim of an abusive relationship, it epitomizes the extent of victims’ feelings of helplessness
This theme becomes apparent if one pays attention longer than the movie’s early twist. Josh frequently cites Iris’s programming that won’t allow her to lie to him, leave him or help herself from loving him — statements that describe both the imagined companion robots and victims of emotional abuse.
The movie also depicts the cyclical nature of abusive relationships, with Iris escaping and being dragged back to Josh multiple times in the 97-minute movie. Each time, Josh promises to change, and each return he only becomes more violent. He commands Iris to catch herself on fire then extinguishes her only to have her shoot herself in the head.
The reason Iris murders Sergey in self-defense is because Josh mods her and plants the knife in her pocket; he did this for access to Sergey’s fortune. When Iris is rebooted by the company that created her and cleansed of the mod — and granted total self-control — she returns to Josh to taunt him, reminding him that she can reveal his crimes. This initially seems like a final act of healing or reclaiming power, but it results in Josh attacking Iris, flinging her room to room like a ragdoll.
Iris winds up beneath Josh, a gun aimed at her essential hardware. He gives her the classic, “Any last words?” She says yes: “Go to sleep, Josh,” and then a familiar automated corkscrew thrust into the side of his head.
While my defense of Companion may have leaned aggressive against its critics, I do not earnestly believe that because someone disagrees with me on a movie that they are wrong. Rather, I believe that horror has come to a point where there are duelling definitions.
Some viewers stand by the traditional hallmarks of horror: jumpscare-riddled thrillers and slashers, viscera-filled body horrors. How much air time out of your seat can a horror movie collect?
Today, these movies are still being made. However, there isn’t the same demand as there used to be; in fact, franchises like these — think Saw or Paranormal Activity — are now described as cheesy or corny. The change may have to do with a society increasingly overstimulated and fried by constant sensory input from technology. Consider: How is a thriller’s jumpscare so different from scrolling TikTok and encountering a suddenly loud content creator’s introduction, often with them leaping toward the screen?
Companion may underperform by old horror’s standards. It excels, however, in another, newer strain of horror.
This other camp defines horror more cerebrally or based on ideas. These new-school horror movies employ the genre name horror so that, when they draw parallels from their fictional world to our actual one, the implication is all the more resonant. It may spark viewers to melodramatically think, even if only in that transient moment while walking from the theater to your car: We’re all living in a horror movie.
