Dating in the Internet/digital age seems to be worse. In the olden days if you bumped into someone you thought you’d like to go on a date with, it was usually easy to tell. Blind dates have existed for a long time but they were usually set up by people you know. I’ve never had good ones.
The idea of a friend wanting their friend to date you or a friend of a friend is just a recipe for disaster. George Constanza was right. There has to be boundaries and borders. Sometimes your partner can’t hang out with your friends. That’s the way it has to be sometimes.
But nowadays, it’s easier or harder to know anything about someone especially if you meet them on dating site. Some people are just looking for sex. Others are looking for relationships. But there is no way of knowing who looks good on paper (or the tablet screen).
Violet Gates (Meghann Fahy) is a widowed Chicago therapist with a young son, Toby (Jacob Robinson), at home. She got out of an abusive relationship that we find more about as the movie goes along. She’s meeting Henry Campbell (Brandon Sklenar), a photographer at a fancy restaurant at the top of one of the skyscrapers. So, she’s already suffering unease even going to the restaurant.
But things increasingly get worse as Violet gets “Digi-Drops” which are short range texting messages from someone who has to be in the restaurant. They becoming more threatening and aggressive as Violet eventually sees text messages of a masked gunman inside her house. With both the safety of her son and sister, Jen (Violett Beane) at risk, Violet is faced with having to comply with the demands of the text.
Who could be sending them? Henry, himself? Or is it Matt (Jeffrey Self), who happens to be a new waiter at the restaurant? Or maybe it’s Cara (Gabrielle Ryan), the friendly bartender. Then again, it could be Richard (Reed Diamond), an older diner who is on a blind date himself.
Christopher Landon, the son of famed Michael Landon, has directed horrors and thrillers before such as the Happy Death Day movies. The set-up presents a lot of red herrings for Violet to consider. And time is a factor. Even worse, there’s no where she can go to contact authorities or seek help. It’s 2025 now. Everyone has a smartphone. All restaurants, especially one that is fancy as this one has security cameras.
And all a good hacker has to do is connect to the Wi-Fi and know how to bounce off it to get a signal. It’s easy to compare this to Wes Craven’s Red Eye in which Rachel McAdams plays a hotel employee terrorized by a mysterious man played by Cillian Murphy who is seated next to her on a plane. However, unlike that movie, a good portion is set within the restaurant which helps to the tension that Violet can’t get out.
Also, like good horror writers, Violet is less concerned about her own safety, but the safety of her family. It was the same in Red Eye where a hitman was waiting outside the home of the main character’s father played by Brian Cox. But all these movies work best when we believe the actors involved. Nowadays, McAdams and Murphy are big named celebrities now so such casting wouldn’t work.
Fahy and Sklenar are mostly known for their work on TV and supporting roles in movies. But they are both very good at making us care for each character as to what they say can be believable.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 