The tagline for 2025’s Borderline pitches the film as a “violently romantic comedy”; however, despite a stacked cast and a promising popcorn-horror stalker plot, it unfortunately misses the mark on both the comedy and the horror (but hey, it delivers on the violence). Written and directed by Jimmy Warden (husband of lead actress Samara Weaving, and whose writing credits include Cocaine Bear and The Babysitter: Killer Queen), this horror comedy set in 90s Los Angeles tells the story of a deranged superfan, Paul (Ray Nicholson), who is stalking famous pop star Sofia (Samara Weaving) after suffering a mental break that leads him to believe that he and Sofia are in love and destined to be married. His delusions lead him to concoct a distubring plan where after being confined to a mental hospital after the events of the opening act, he escapes along with fellow inmates, Penny (Alba Baptista) and J.H. (Patrick Cox), and takes Sofia hostage in her own mansion to conduct his wedding unbeknownst to his future bride. Sofia must fight to outsmart the deranged Paul and escape the hostage-to-marriage pipeline, with or without the protection of her friend and bodyguard (Eric Dane, RIP) and NBA player boyfriend Rhodes (Jimmie Fails), who are the only obstacles standing between Paul and his soon-to-be “wife”. Bloody deaths, epic 90s needle drops, and many a fight scene ensue in this rollercoaster of a film as it hurtles towards a bizarre walk down the aisle.
Fun fact: according to IMDB trivia this film was loosely based on a stalking case involving Madonna in the 1990s that followed a similarly horrorifying escalation of events where a violent man reportedly told her bodyguard that he intended to slit her throat if she didn’t marry him, before he was eventually convicted of violent stalking and incarcerated for 10 years before escaping a mental hospital and being apprehended again before she could be harmed.
Before we get to the review, let’s address the title. A common criticism this movie was met with is that the title suggests the antagonist has borderline personality disorder, which, needless to say, is a harmful stereotype for those who have this mental health condition. However, the movie is intentionally vague about what mental health condition Paul suffers from (he seems to be delusional, and his mental breakdown and ensuing behaviour were triggered by a traumatic incident). The title could be read as referring to the ‘borderline’ between sanity and insanity, or more likely, is simply a nod to the IRL Madonna stalker story, based on their inclusion of a cover of Madonna’s Borderline in the film. The writers could be credited for not pinning a villain’s backstory on a specific mental health condition, but the title could be viewed as a potentially offensive oversight. But I digress. I won’t get into the politics of depicting mental health in media as they relate to this film’s title and Paul’s characterization in this review; I will instead focus on the film’s overall effectiveness.
With my love of Samara Weaving’s horror catalogue (Ready Or Not and the first The Babysitter movie being among my top favourite horror movies), I was shocked at how underwhelmed I was by this film. With a powerful lead like Weaving and LuckyChap backing the film (who also produced Promising Young Woman), Borderline should have been a homerun. Instead, we get a movie that ironically borders on the cusp of horror and comedy, never truly succeeding at either genre (the security guard vomit kill notwithstanding—as someone with intense emetophobia, that is true horror and I’m still not over it). My three main criticisms boil down to the pacing, the character development, and the film’s handling of comedy. Borderline was disconcertingly inconsistent in tone, going from full throttle on the comedy to full throttle on the horror, and back and forth again. It can’t figure out what it wants to be.
Horror-comedy is my favourite horror subgenre, so on paper, I should have loved this film. However, the comedy was extremely heavy-handed, disrupting the film’s pacing at numerous points. I can appreciate that they took big swings with the dark comedy, and I can respect a quirky, out-of-pocket scene as much as the next person, but Borderline was doing too. much. This film had the makings of some great comedic moments, but didn’t use them to their full potential. Namely, in these moments, the comedy either fell flat, or it succeeded but then lost steam and ultimately never reached any payoff (for example, the piano scene where Sofia, while captive, breaks into a Celine Dion duet to “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” with one of her captors around the piano). The one and only scene that succeeded in the comedy was undoubtedly the hilariously twisted wedding scene between Paul and Sofia in the third act. This scene subverted expectations and was well-acted from all sides. The wedding scene succeeded as comedy because it wasn’t trying to force it; rather, it let the outlandish circumstances speak for themselves, unlike many other scenes in the film. Ironically, the absurd circumstantial comedy in the wedding scene also allowed the tension to build at the same time, leaving you, the viewer, drawn in and waiting on the edge of your seat to see what crazy thing happened next (which I think is the feeling the film was trying to evoke all along). Too bad they didn’t capitalize on this perfect balance of humour and tension until the near-end of the film.
When it comes to the horror aspects of the film, any tension that was built was repeatedly interrupted by the out-of-pocket comedy, and moreover, Ray Nicholson’s performance—mileage may vary on viewers’ enjoyment of his moustache-twirling villain performance as Paul. While clearly a talented actor, his acting came across as overdone, even if the intent was to take his character into fun, camp territory. Needless to say, the choppy pacing due to the push-and-pull between horror and comedy left little buildup leading to the climax. Although I will give credit to the first scene between Paul and the bodyguard for successfully building tension, perhaps because Nicholson was unhinged in an understated way and hadn’t turned up his overacting to a 12 out of 10 on the Jack Torrance scale yet.
In terms of the plot, Bordeline would have benefited from fewer characters and more character development. The greatest character-development misstep the film makes is the glaring lack of scenes between Sofia and Paul. This could have been a great tool for further character development for both of our main characters, and perhaps Ray Nicholson’s zany performance would have translated better if he had more opportunities to play off of Samara Weaving’s energy. On the subject of Sofia, her character doesn’t get a proper arc—she initially comes across as self-centred yet seemingly changes by the third act, but you don’t see any of this character development. Ultimately, Sofia’s character is underwritten, and she’s only likable because it’s Samara Weaving. Her character writing (or lack thereof) seemed to rely on the goodwill the actor has with the audience, not on the character herself. Furthermore, due to lacklustre character writing (and at no fault to her acting ability), Weaving’s talent wasn’t utilized to its full comedic or final-girl potential, as we saw from her in Ready Or Not. What. A. Bummer.
If I could retool the film, I would remove unnecessary characters, such as Paul’s psych ward sidekicks (though Alba Baptista’s Manson family-brand of comedy was oddly entertaining), and increase Jimmie Fails’ screen time twofold. His performance as Sofia’s boyfriend, Rhodes, endeared me to what could have been a less important side character. His straight-faced delivery of the comedy in the wedding scene was as earnest as it was funny, and I was rooting for his character’s survival the whole film. I also love that his character could easily be read as queer-coded with his inexplicably bisexual swag. Moving on to Eric Dane, his performance as her bodyguard, Bell, was widely criticized for being ‘flat.’ I would be inclined to agree, but I found myself still deeply caring about him, partly by default because he was a father figure, and partly because of the close-knit relationship between him and Sofia established in the mini exposition dump in the opening scene. Needless to say, the film’s critics and I would have been more invested if we had seen Bell interact with Sofia more, which would have, in turn, humanized her and added dimension to her character.
To end on a positive note, one thing that did win me over about this film was the soundtrack. Borderline is filled with tonally perfect ‘90s needle drops that complement the pop-star-focused story. So, whether you’re invested in the plot or not, there are plenty of nostalgic 90s pop songs to keep millennial viewers happy (the inclusion of Lovefool by The Cardigans is *chef’s kiss*).
Unfortunately, not even the nostalgic soundtrack and horror queen Samara Weaving herself could make up for the tonally incoherent plot, and as much as it pains me to say, Borderline is a skip-worthy film.