Movie Review (Warped Dimension): Companion

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May 3, 2021

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Joseph Perry is the Film Festival Editor for Horror Fuel; all film festival related queries and announcements should be sent to him at josephperry@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.

Writer/director John Darbonne has created a new type of supernatural entity, one that doesn’t let the humans it encounters know of clear rules involving it. This leads to mystery and confusion for both the characters in Companion and, to some extent, viewers, as well. Mind games, duplicity, and deceit rule the world of this film, which has a decidedly grim edge to it.
Gus (Marcus Anthony) and Ella (Anna Flynn) Grace are a married couple who viewers meet three years after a war and in the throes of an apocalypse. Since that time, entities called companions have inhabited the world, seeking out those who show fear. Companions look like some other-dimensional cross between the dead from Carnival of Souls and zombies.
The Preacher (Eric Hanson) and two sidekicks burst onto the scene, gravely injuring Gus and brutalizing Ella. Just as quickly as the villainous trio showed up, Abner (Russell Shealy) arrives, and he has reasons to hunt down The Preacher. This leads to Abner convincing a reluctant Ella that Gus is as good as dead, and that she should accompany him in search of The Preacher and also a safe haven, to which Gus agrees. This sets up the rest of the film, which has a good deal of surprises and no little bleakness in store.
Companion is part road film, part character study, and very much a horror film, with plenty of the red stuff and body parts on gruesome, well-rendered display. The companions are used to fine effect, appearing sometimes as flashing visions like something off a television screen and at other times as decidedly solid creatures capable of killing.
Darbonne’s dialogue is sharply written and believable, and the relationships between the characters feel realistic, with plenty of give and take, and back and forth. Companion comes with plenty of drama and philosophical pondering, and it is never easy to decide in whom viewers should invest. These characters are all flawed, bent or broken people and the cast does a fine job bringing them to cinematic life.
With Companion, Darbonne makes a skillful debut as a feature writer and director. The ending is bound to be divisive, but the film leaves viewers with plenty on which to chew.
Companion screens as part of Warped Dimension live-streamed online film festival — presented by Another Hole in the Head — which takes place online from May 7–9, 2021. For more information, visit www.AHITH.com.