Director of new twisty romance horror Companion explains why it wouldn't have worked without The Boys and Yellowjackets stars: "I can't imagine anyone else"

Writer-director Drew Hancock has opened up as to why The Boys' Jack Quaid and Yellowjackets' Sophie Thatcher were the perfect co-leads for his twisty romance horror Companion.

From the studio that brought you The Notebook and "the unhinged creators of Barbarian" (as the wild trailer states), the movie is shrouded in mystery. The minute-long clip, which is the only footage we've seen so far, opens on a couple sharing a romantic dinner, before things take a turn and it's revealed that Thatcher's character is actually handcuffed to her chair. (If you look closely, the anonymous chef preparing their meal also has blood spatters on his white T-shirt).

What follows is a montage of dark, increasingly violent scenes, before Thatcher's character says via voiceover, "I know it's going to sound cheesy but, the moment we locked eyes, there was just a... spark." It ends with Quaid's character smiling menacingly as he forces Thatcher's seemingly paralyzed woman to hold her hand over a candle, setting her arm on fire.

"Taking someone with a baby face and giving them moments of aggression and anger, it's the contradiction that makes it so much scarier," the filmmaker says of Quaid in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on December 31.

"[Sophie] makes the movie," Hancock goes on. "I can't imagine anyone else in that role. I knew before we started rolling that it was a really tough part to cast. We started auditioning so many good actresses – I don't want to undersell the quality of actresses – but there's the emotional journey she goes on which many struggled with.

"Five seconds into Sophie's performance, my heart was pounding so fast because I was thinking about a future where this movie didn't have her."

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If there's one thing for certain about Companion, it's that viewers need to gear themselves up for a genre-bending thrill ride. According to Hancock, it's "ultimately the story of a guy and a girl breaking up", but as the teaser suggests, this is far from a straight-forward, heartstring-tugging drama.

"We're selling this as a horror-ish movie, but it's six different genres," Hancock says. "I would actually put horror fourth or fifth down the list." To discuss the story's predominant genre would give half the story away. "We showed the film to two focus groups," he adds. "One where people didn't know anything about it and one where they knew the twist. For the people who didn't know, it was like cotton candy. They did not see it coming. You could just hear collective awe."

Also starring Lukas Gage (Smile 2), Megan Suri (It Lives Inside), Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows), and Rupert Friend (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Companion releases on January 10 in the US, before reaching UK theaters on January 31.

Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on Tuesday, December 31.