‘Companion’ review: AI and dating mix darkly in horror lark

As studio horror has gotten slicker and funnier, closer to an amusement park ride than anything truly unnerving, it’s probably better to judge these films for their date-like qualities. Good-looking and funny that turns creepy and tension-filled (but stays funny) is more desirable than, say, the resolutely safe and predictable.

So what kind of companion is “Companion,” starring Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid as romantic weekenders in for some surprises involving ulterior motives and bad technology? Certainly closer to the good-time lark “M3GAN” (with which it shares cautionary humor about AI) than the slow-burn freakout “Barbarian,” the surprise shocker from a few falls ago that the movie’s ads would rather you keep in mind.

This isn’t the hidden passage into hell that was “Barbarian.” But the unexpected is baked into the thriller appeal of “Companion,” which hinges on the troubles, triggers and instincts of good girlfriend Iris, whom horror queen Thatcher makes instantly compelling as our how-it-went-down tour guide. Iris is accompanying her wisecracking, goofy-faced, attentive boyfriend Josh (Quaid) to the lakeside manse of mysterious, louche Russian businessman Sergei (a coolly ridiculous Rupert Friend), where the other guests are Sergei’s tart-tongued squeeze Kat (Megan Suri) and googly-eyes twosome Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Iris, dressed like a willowy naif out of a soft-focus ad from another era (a vibe oversold with the soundtrack’s strummy needle drops from the ’60s), is worried none of this crew will like her, but at the forefront of her mind is making her dude happy.

That goal of hers would appear to be very much in doubt, though, when she returns from a beach walk covered in blood and upset, their party of six now minus one human being. Then again, not everybody in the house is a human being to begin with, which is the first twist in writer-director Drew Hancock’s attempt at a couples satire by way of “Westworld” and “The Terminator” (and, sure, “M3GAN”). This revelation, coming when Iris is subsequently cuffed and pleading, shouldn’t be that much of a shock — Hancock drops a couple of cues in the calm-but-eerie buildup — but the key here is that it is a deep blow for Iris, who must absorb this world-shattering information and figure out how to survive the trip.

Nobody is as they seem, including Iris, and all “Companion” needs to do is keep you strapped in while the action occasionally breaks for the explanatory and the body count rises. And it does, with pace and verve.

Thankfully, with her baked-in edge, Thatcher is quite good at the mix of deadpan and strength the role requires — and it’s very much OK if you don’t entirely believe her in those first scenes as an apprehensive codependent. (It eventually helps feed one of the screenplay’s more interesting speculations about the future of relationships.) The actors surrounding Thatcher, meanwhile, are a cannily calibrated bunch of game pieces in motion, with Gage making solidly funny use of performative handsomeness, looks that just as easily morph into a worrying blankness.

Logic isn’t always this movie’s best friend — an irony for any movie whose plot is literally about the programming of outcomes. But as a dark techno-farce with a violent wit and some daring empathy (coming as it does in a time of suspicious excitement about our modeled, molded future), “Companion” is a sleekly designed, well-powered date-night package.