I’m predisposed to like whatever director Christopher Landon makes. After Happy Death Day and its even-better sequel, and the underseen 2020 horror/comedy flick Freaky, Landon has done enough in the horror/comedy space for me to immediately be excited about whatever he chooses to do next. His latest is the thriller Drop, opening this Friday after a successful premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. Drop finds the filmmaker in more of a straight thriller mode, and it became clear to me early on, in the film’s opening credits, that this is Landon’s ode to Alfred Hitchcock. And it’s another certified Christopher Landon banger.

Violet (Meghann Fahy) is a therapist in Chicago who is a widowed single mother and a survivor of domestic violence. After hesitancy to put herself out there again after the death of her husband, she goes to a fancy restaurant for a date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar), who she’s been talking to online for a few months and leaves her young son with her sister (Violett Beane). Pretty much as soon as she gets to the restaurant, Violet is harassed by a series of anonymous messages to her phone, instructing her to tell nobody and ultimately asking her to kill her date, or this person will have her son murdered. Violet must keep one step ahead of this anonymous sociopath, as the situation escalates and becomes more terrifying.

As a home invasion thriller and a parable about domestic violence, Drop is incredibly successful at keeping the viewer on edge for the film’s duration and escalating the stress level inherent in this premise. I mention the film’s opening credits because there’s a visual style to them that emulates the Saul Bass design in many of Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic films. And that also effectively sets the mood for what we should be expecting over the subsequent 90 minutes. That’s also another point in this film’s favor, we never feel like we’re wasting time or stalling in this premise. The pacing is quick, breathless and intense throughout. The way Landon introduces us to different people in this restaurant feels like we’re seeing a lineup of suspects, and there’s something very Agatha Christie about that. Landon is taking inspiration from the greats, but it never feels like we’re seeing this from anything other than his directorial vision.

Meghann Fahy previously made a splash in the second season of The White Lotus, and she’s giving an all-caps, bold-print, underlined, italicized PERFORMANCE here, in a film where the writing is meeting her at her own level. You need to have a real understanding, as the viewer, of Violet’s past and her trauma, even though we’re only fed hints of that in flashbacks. And Fahy gives this character a complete internal life in a way that I found fascinating. And if the viewer is not on her side throughout, and if we don’t believe her, this film doesn’t work. And Fahy is giving a nuanced, emotional, sublime performance here.

Brandon Sklenar was most recently seen in the beleaguered adaptation of It Ends With Us, and I find it kind of amusing that Drop is a much more nuanced and sensitive film about domestic abuse. Sklenar is not playing the bad guy, and we know that throughout. The way Sklenar’s performance isn’t giving you hints of menace or suspicion is something I actually appreciated. It felt like a good thing to know that someone is on this character’s side as the world around her is being terrorized. I also enjoyed some smaller performances here from comedian Jeffrey Self, as the couple’s flamboyant waiter and Gabrielle Ryan Spring as a waitress who suspects something fishy is going on.

I also really was enjoying the technical aspects on display here. Drop was filmed in Ireland, which you’d never know this as production designer Susie Cullen has sleekly and efficiently put together the look of this restaurant in a Chicago high-rise. There’s a hallway with lighting that puts the viewer on edge from the minute Violet arrives there, and as a viewer you would absolutely want to meet someone for drinks at this restaurant, even with all that goes on here. Cinematographer Mark Spicer, who has worked with Landon previously, shot this and there is a lot of really inventive, cool camerawork here that does a lot to set the vibe. The mostly single-location setting gives way to lots of claustrophobia and intensity. Gwen Jeffares-Hourie’s costume design is also pretty fantastic, namely the red cocktail dress Fahy wears for the majority.

As a whole, I went into Drop pretty confident that I would find a lot to enjoy here, and I wasn’t disappointed. Christopher Landon is just so good at this thing at this point, and the screenplay by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach is sharp, thrilling and vividly detailed and it really keeps the viewer on edge throughout. The viewer may have to suspend disbelief periodically as this story keeps escalating, but the film is good enough where you’re not questioning plot beats as we go on. Landon and the screenwriters keep you so tightly dialed into the central mystery here, and it’s a deeply tense, unrelenting success. Drop serves as another reminder of how good the mid-budget thriller made for adults can be, and I would absolutely recommend seeing this one with a crowd of people reacting. The technology-themed paranoid thriller is something we’re seeing a lot these days, but it’s rarely done this well. Drop is a slickly made and thrilling nail-biter that will leave you guessing the whole way through.