Review of "The Guest"

Warning! Contains spoilers!

There is a lot of pressure running on a movie trailer. Inappropriate promotion will empty a theatre quicker than the Russian army. “The Guest” had my interest almost immediately. The cinema trailer promised a psychological thriller brimming with tension and suspense. But the television version offered an action movie brimming with slow motion gun fights. Either this was going to be some art house bull shit or the tone of the movie would shift at some point. But when? Which trailer most accurately showed me the movie? Was it half thriller, half action? Maybe one third tension and two thirds shoot out. Who knows? Tone, tone, tone. One of these messages is lying to me. Morbid fascination aint the best reason to go see a film but it beats sitting at home downloading episodes of ‘Pointless’. Show time!

In a bland No-where-ville town, the Peterson family are still in mourning for their eldest son who died in Afghanistan. Like a flash of plot from a clear blue sky, David (Dan Stevens) arrives. Newly discharged from the military, he is a war buddy of said dead son who promised to check in on his family if something should explosively happen to his body. After initial caution, the family slowly start to warm to David and ask him to stay for a few days. Everything turns red and snuggly with joy as David becomes a big brother to the geeky younger son, friend to the rebellious sister, shoulder to cry on to the mum and drinking buddy to the dad. The family begins to rise from their stagnation and a light can be seen at the end of their sorrow. The son stands up to his bullies at school, the sister separates from her waster boyfriend, the father gets a promotion at work and the mum can smile again. Unfortunately all these things happen because David has beaten up, blow up, seduced, murdered, framed and manipulated everyone within a three county area. A big evil private corporation finds out that David is ‘still alive’ and sends a group of mercenaries to annihilate him. Realising his cover is screwed, David begins picking the family one by one Friday the 13^th style to cover his tracks. The sister and young brother flee into a Halloween themed school hall to hide. Things kind of don’t end well from there.   

Nice David

I hope for one that this movie is the vehicle behind the successful Hollywood career of the two main characters. David is played by Dan Stevens (the one off Downton Abbey who ruined Chrismas Day two years ago) and he absolutely dominates. ‘The Guest’ works so well because of this performance. There is something so real, so very ‘other’ about David when he is on screen like watching a panther that no one else has noticed walking through Tesco.  Almost like everything and everyone else is dulled or slightly out of focus. Next we have 21 year old Maika Monroe who stars as Anna Peterson, the (eventual) protagonist once we have figured out who David is. Teenagers in movies are often (so very, very often) a tight jean wearing cliché cannon of angst, insolence and ‘no one understands me’ twatery. While some of these characteristics are present it must be said that at no point do we feel they have been turned up to eleven. Monroe plays a person who happens to be a teenager. And she does it very well. More from both of these actors please!

Evil David

We reach the crux of the puzzle that is ‘The Guest’. Is David a bad guy? In retrospect – fuck yes! But I felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt for about two thirds of the movie. At any point the film might have pulled a fast one on us. It just as easily could have transpired that David was a man ravaged by a pointless war who desperately wanted something to belong to, something he found in the Peterson family. It could have also just been a good old friendly house guest turns out to be a psycho killer. Days after viewing the movie, I’m still not sold that both of the above could not be true. It turns out David is actually some rogue super solider created by an aforementioned evil corporation who is trying to escape before he is incinerated as the final chapter of an elaborate experiment gone horribly wrong. But what was the experiment? The Government Man who comes to kill David warns that he is bumping off the family because his ‘programming has kicked in.’ What programming? What the hell is he?!? This as a movie about a killer who takes advantage of a family’s kindness by subversively envelope their lives. Or add levels of complexity. David takes the odd bullet and knife wound. You can chortle to yourself about how he comes across as one of those B movie unrelenting, unstoppable killers. Or add complexity… Now you think about it at the beginning of the movie he jogged for miles without a bead of sweat on his brow. He is never seen to sleep. Drugs and alcohol have no effect on him. You start to ask yourself questions about what you actually just witnessed.

Better hide from the killer in this room of mirrors. Like a pro.

‘The Guest’ is a fantastic bit of independent film. It does not try to answer any of the questions you will ask yourself. David is an event, not a character. You do not ponder the back story of an avalanche, you just run! The last line of the movie is “what the fuck?!?” Believe me when I say this is completely appropriate!

I give ‘The Guest’ five Brian faces out of five. I’m calling this flick out as a cult classic before anyone else!