Back in 2022, horror fans fell in love with Barbarian, a rare movie where the marketing kept all the story's major twists hidden.
The team behind that movie have reunited for new horror movie Companion and the first trailer appeared to keep the 'reveal nothing' ethos of Barbarian. We knew it starred the likes of Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher, and we knew it was some sort of twisted romance tale.
However, the main trailer released earlier this month did exactly the opposite, 'spoiling' a major story reveal among other things and leading to a backlash from viewers. But it's to Companion's credit that it doesn't really matter if you know.
Going into Companion cold is absolutely the best experience though, as it is with every movie. If you're sold on an original horror movie from the Barbarian team with two of the best genre stars around, then just go and see it in cinemas this weekend.
But if you have already seen the twist, then let us reassure you as to why it won't ruin your enjoyment of the entertainingly twisted Companion.
Companion opens with a meet-cute between Josh (Quaid) and Iris (Thatcher) in a supermarket fruit aisle. He awkwardly ruins a display of oranges, but she finds it endearing and not embarrassing.
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So far, so rom-com. But something is off immediately when Iris talks of the two times in her life when she was "happiest". "The first was the day I met Josh and the second, the day I killed him," she notes – and this is before even the title sequence.
They head on a break to a remote house with Josh's friends Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Kat (Megan Suri), along with Eli's boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage) and Kat's lover Sergey (Rupert Friend), who owns the house.
The twist, which you'd know if you saw the main trailer, is that Iris is no ordinary girlfriend. She's a robot whose only role in life is to service any of Josh's needs, whether it's perking him up when he's feeling down... or perking him up in the bedroom.
It might feel like this is a big thing to spoil in a trailer, but Companion doesn't take too long to reveal it in the movie even if it doesn't happen immediately. It's also far from the only twist that the script takes over a pacy 97-minute runtime.
When it comes to Companion, the journey is the fun part and not the discovery. Whether it's perfectly-timed flashbacks, visual gags or the absurdity of the situation (including an exceptional sequence where Iris speaks German), Companion is often extremely funny for those of a dark humour persuasion.
The script from director Drew Hancock constantly plays on your expectations, even teasing the viewer with what can only be called Chekhov's Corkscrew. Beyond the fact that you know Josh's ultimate fate, you can never tell exactly what will happen next.
It helps that the leads understand the tone of the movie. Jack Quaid gets to revisit his Scream experience as a perfectly-judged whiny toxic male whose charm masks his insecurities ("I'm a good guy"), while Sophie Thatcher has excellent comic timing and is equally adept with the physical set pieces.
There's fun support too from Harvey Guillén and Rupert Friend, although you'll wish that Megan Suri was given as much to work with as Lukas Gage, whose Patrick provides an unexpected emotional edge to the story.
The breakneck nature of Companion does start to wear thin in the final act, especially as you'll likely spot some logic holes if you look hard enough. It doesn't derail it entirely though and you are treated to a grisly, and unique, final death to cap off proceedings.
We get it if you were disappointed at the marketing for revealing Iris is a robot, but if it's something that gets more people to experience the gleefully dark Companion, then it's a sacrifice that was worth it.
Companion is out now in cinemas.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
