Review of DROP: Dating Distress

April 19, 2025

Violet (Meghann Fahy) decided that she was ready to start dating again after the death of her husband Blake (Michael Shea). She set a blind dinner date with a photographer named Henry (Brandon Sklenar) whom she met on a dating app, at a fancy restaurant called Palate. located at the penthouse of a high-rise building. She left her young son Toby (Jacob Robinson) with her sister Jen (Violett Beane) who agreed to babysit. 

Henry and Violet were seated at a table beside the window with a grand bird's-eye view of the whole city. Violet began receiving a series of threatening "digi-drops" on her mobile phone from an unknown entity who seemed to be able to see everything she was doing. The mysterious sender ordered Violet to follow all his instructions, or else her son and sister will be terminated by a killer he sent to her home. 

Since Violet was being terrorized by an unseen tormentor only through messages on her phone, Meghann Fahy to act up a storm to portray Violet's increasing stress, panic and paranoia. She had to figure out how to do the risky illegal tasks in that very public place, while monitoring the condition of her family in her house. Through all of that, she should still be able to convince Henry that she was interested in their date. 

To make things more interesting, there were also a number of characters within Palate, anyone of whom could be potential suspects. There was the friendly bartender Cara (Gabrielle Ryan), the drunk pianist Phil (Ed Weeks), the hyper waiter Matt (Jeffery Self).  She also go to chat with other customers, like Connor (Travis Nelson) whom she bumped into coming in, and Richard (Reed Diamond), who was having his own blind date. 

With such a limited space for him to work with, it was up to director Christopher Landon had to create an effective atmosphere of suspense, with the help of his editor Ben Baudhuin and musical scorer Bear McCreary. Landon wrote all the "Paranormal Activity" films since #2 (2010) and directed #4 (2014), then wrote and directed the "Happy Death Day" films (2017, 2019), his skills for this genre has surely been sharpened with deadly precision. 7/10.