Significant Other (2022)

Significant Other takes the familiar “couple in the woods” setup and quietly sharpens it into something smarter, stranger, and far more unsettling than you expect, using the Pacific Northwest’s postcard beauty as a mask for creeping dread. Dan Berk and Robert Olsen keep the tension humming with confident, clean storytelling, and when the movie pivots, it does so with the kind of nerve and precision that makes you lean in rather than roll your eyes. Maika Monroe is terrific at turning anxiety into a survival sense, while Jake Lacy brings an inviting warmth that makes the relationship feel lived-in before the nightmare truly sets its hooks. It’s not for viewers who want slow, meditative horror or who shy away from some gnarly R-rated violence, but if you like sci-fi thrillers that deliver atmosphere, surprises, and a satisfying jolt of originality, this one’s an easy recommendation.

Significant Other wants to be a lean, outdoorsy sci‑fi paranoia thriller—two people, vast wilderness, one unsettling discovery—and you can feel it reaching for that slow-burn dread. The problem is it often plays too restrained for its own good: the pacing drifts, the dialogue can feel on-the-nose, and the suspense never quite tightens to match the premise, so stretches can come off thin rather than tense. If you’re hoping for a genuinely creepy, escalating horror ride or deep character work, this may leave you waiting for a payoff that doesn’t fully land. Still, Maika Monroe sells the anxiety and unease well, and the Pacific Northwest setting plus a few nasty bursts of gore give it enough bite to work as a low-key genre watch—just not the knockout it’s trying to be.