We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Thrills, action, and mythology.
COMPANION (2025)
Writer/director Zach Creggers caught a lot of positive attention with his 2022 horror film Barbarian, which was made on a budget of around $4 million and earned $45 million at the box office. New Line Cinema wasn’t involved with that project, but they went all-in on a partnership with Cregger and Barbarian’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures in response to its success. The first project to come out of that partnership is the sci-fi thriller Companion, produced by Cregger and BoulderLight, written and directed by Drew Hancock in his feature debut. Cregger was so impressed by Hancock’s script that he considered directing the movie himself at one point, but decided to have Hancock direct it while he focused on bringing another script of his own to the screen.
Companion is one of those movies that is best enjoyed if you go into it knowing as little about it as possible... which means that even watching the trailer is enough to spoil some of the fun. Ruining the surprises won’t ruin the movie, but not knowing them will improve the viewing experience.
The story involves a meek, insecure young woman named Iris (Sophie Thatcher) accompanying her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) for a get-together at a remote cabin with Josh’s friend Kat (Megan Suri), her wealthy older boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend), and another couple, Patrick and Eli (Lukas Gage and Harvey Guillén). The situation quickly falls apart, people turn against each other, and soon you have some of the characters hunting others through the woods.
Hancock crafted an interesting story that’s set “sometime in the near future” and gathered a strong cast to bring the characters to life. Everyone in the movie does a great job, with Thatcher again showing herself to be a great heroine (like in The Boogeyman), Quaid playing a douche again (as he did in the fifth Scream movie), Friend bringing some laughs with his portrayal of Sergey, Suri playing her questionable character very well, and Gage and Guillén making for a great couple. Gage was also given a range of situations to play and handled them all perfectly.
Companion was made for slightly more than Barbarian ($10 million) and earned less at the box office (around $35 million), but regardless of the financial payoff, Cregger and BoulderLight did deliver a really good movie as part of their New Line deal.
BOY KILLS WORLD (2023)
Setting out to make his feature directorial debut after a couple decades of making short films, Moritz Mohr showed a short film and a previsualization reel to legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi – and Raimi was so impressed by what he saw, he agreed to produce Mohr’s movie alongside Vertigo Entertainment, Nthibah Pictures, and Hammerstone Studios. The resulting action movie, Boy Kills World, is an energetic blast that is practically just a series of bone-crunching fight scenes, with some interesting twists and turns coming along the way.
Scripted by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers from a story Mohr crafted with Remmers, the film takes place in a dystopian world where the Van Der Koy family, headed up by Famke Janssen as matriarch Hilda, has taken control of a city – and keeps control of it by executing a dozen dissenters in an annual event known as The Culling. Bill Skarsgard stars as the titular Boy, whose family – including his beloved sister – were massacred in a Culling. Boy was left dead and mute by the events of that Culling, but survived... and has spent years plotting revenge. With the help of a Shaman (Yayan Ruhian), Boy has learned martial arts and built his body up into an instrument of vengeance... and just 20 minutes or so into the film’s 111 minute running time, he begins to carry out his mission of revenge.
While kicking, punching, slashing, and blasting his way through a multitude of enemies, Skarsgard proves to be quite capable of being a badass action hero, while H. Jon Benjamin provides narration as the Boy’s very chatty inner voice so we can know what he’s thinking at all times – and also give us the exposition needed so we know what happened to Boy, his family, and the city. Boy lifted his inner voice from an arcade fighting game and Skarsgard had recorded a version of this narration himself, but they decided to bring Benjamin in to re-record it for some reason.
On his mission, Boy crosses paths with questionable characters played by the likes of Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, and Sharlto Copley, teams up with the likes of Andrew Koji and Isaiah Mustafa, and has to face off with an enforcer called June 27. At one point, horror regular Samara Weaving, whose credits include The Babysitter and Ready or Not, was set to play June 27, but then scheduling issues came up and another actress had to be found to play the role. Although I’m a Weaving fan, I don’t think it’s a terrible thing that she wasn’t able to do this movie, because she already did something along this lines in Guns Akimbo – and also because her replacement was the awesome Jessica Rothe, star of Happy Death Day, giving her a welcome chance to kick some ass.
Boy Kills World is a very cool movie that I would highly recommend to any fan of the action genre who wants to spend just under two hours watching a bunch of people getting messed up, with some laughs dropped in throughout.
INSTANT JUSTICE (1986)
US Marine Scott Youngblood (Michael Paré) is stationed at the American embassy in Paris – but that doesn’t stop him from seeing some action and saving a man’s life at the start of the film. He’s about to be transferred to Japan... but first, he has to make a stop in Spain. While has been doing well, his sister Kim (Lynda Bridges) has been in a downward spiral in Spain. She’s making good money, working as a companion (not a prostitute) to wealthy men, but that business has brought her into contact with some shady characters. And when she refuses to have sex with a client, she gets murdered by her employer. Scott thought he would be visiting his sister and rescuing her from a rough life, but once he arrives in Spain, the plan changes: he’s going to have to avenge her death. And get some “instant justice.”
As Scott sets out on his mission of revenge, he receives some assistance from a friend of Kim’s, a photographer named Jake (Peter Crook), who is not happy to be dealing with these dangerous situations (“God help me if you’re not Captain America.”), has some interactions with Charles Napier as Marine superior Major Davis, and crosses paths with one of Kim’s fellow party companions, played by Tawny Kitaen – star of one of my favorite horror movies, Witchboard.
Directed by Denis Amar from a screenplay by Craig T. Rumar, Instant Justice – which was apparently also given a release under the title Marine Issue (and An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for a Tooth in Spanish-speaking territories) – is a decent, low budget action movie with multiple fight scenes and some thrilling sequences. One thing that holds it back a bit is the performance delivered by Paré as our hero, as he seems to be sleepwalking through the whole movie. Paré has been great in some great movies, but there’s something very subdued and monotone about him in this one. But when bullets are flying, punches are being thrown, cars are speeding around, and there’s even a scene involving charging bulls, it doesn’t matter that some dialogue is being delivered in an underwhelming way. And Paré does have the appropriate reaction when Scott realizes he has the opportunity to get away from one location in a Trans Am. That car also plays an important role in the very cool demise of a villain.
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