The Guest Review: A Modern Love Letter To 80's Thrillers

The best way that I can describe The Guest is to pitch it as a modern day 80's cult classic thriller due to the overall tone that ran through the entirety of the movie. The concept and story also felt like the type of movie that you'd find in a celebrated 80's cinema collection with famous directors such as John Carpenter or Wes Craven attached. Knowing what those aforementioned filmmakers are known for achieving in their well respected horror or thriller titles, I want to highlight just how much of a comparatively suspenseful moviegoing experience can be found in 2014's, The Guest. So, let's talk about what makes this movie pop as a potential new cult classic in the modern market with a notable retro feel and direction.

The story focuses on the Peterson family mourning the loss of their son who was killed in the line of duty only to be visited by a polite stranger, David, claiming to have fought alongside their son. David tells the grieving family that, as a promise made to their son during their tour together, he has come to help take care of his family during these trying times. Right out of the gate, Dan Stevens does an amazing job portraying this mysterious character as we see him completely infiltrate this vulnerable family's hearts by charming his way through while showing a more malevolent side lurking underneath his welcoming smile. So with the spotlight mostly being on the David character, I can safely say that Stevens completely won me over with this performance towards the end once this sinister character's agenda gradually revealed itself.

Yes, that constant smirk on his face is the most obvious visual implication of an evil genius at work, but it goes hand in hand with his character and the movie's slightly over the top feel. The Guest acts as my introduction to Dan Stevens as an actor, and after seeing what he was able to bring to the screen here, I am more than excited to see what other projects he might have down the line. As for the story, I found it to be very predictable at times due to the basic premise that was laid out in front of us. This isn't the first time that a movie has positioned me to decide whether or not I should trust a seemingly good hearted character with a questionable past. However, the writing does manage to offer up legitimate reasons to at least admire the guy. The twisted things that we see David do behind the scenes in order to help this family with their own individual issues are some of the more interesting moments in the development of his character.

Again, we know this guy is up to no good from the very beginning, but it's still entertaining to see him occasionally perform these "good deeds" for the family throughout the runtime. Also, the slow panning scenes of David just simply sitting on his bed and starring blankly into the air as if awaiting something to happen was absolutely chilling to say the least. I do have to give credit to the excellent direction by Adam Wingard as he does an amazing job at building tension in scenes where nothing of action is necessarily taking place. Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of his work in the V/H/S franchise, so much like my introduction to Dan Stevens here, The Guest provides me with a reason to eagerly seek out Adam's filmography future.

The soundtrack is also something worth mentioning coming from someone with a passionate musical background myself. I've always been interested in seeing how certain films take full advantage of utilizing audio component (be it the soundtrack or the sound design) to enhance the overall experience. Similar to 2011's Drive starring Ryan Gosling, this movie uses the synth heavy musical tones of the 80's era, which as a result, created the type of atmosphere that mirrors something similar to one of the greatest thrillers of that generation, "The Hitcher". What's more interesting is that the songs themselves are not just simply background music, but actually lends themselves to the film as diegetic sound. The daughter, Anna (played serviceably well by Maika Monroe), makes David a mixtape after he states that he enjoyed the music on one of her previous tapes. This tape brilliantly makes its way into becoming sort of a diegetic soundtrack during the finale.

Throughout the film, we see a character by the name of Major Carver who is constantly hot on the trail of catching David (adding more to the mystery behind our charming antagonist). As Carver finally reaches the psychologically infiltrated family's house, we're given one of the greatest and most unforgettable movie scenes of the year. During this scene, we see David helping Mrs. Peterson with hanging the laundry outside temporarily walking away to gather the rest of the clothes. It is at this exact moment that the tone of the movie makes a significant shift from feeling like an engaging suspenseful drama to a full blown action-thriller. What makes this scene so intense and engaging is its overall execution. 

Carver shows Mrs. Peterson David's case file picture (another element adding onto his mysterious background) which she cluelessly tells him that David is just right around the corner having no idea what's about to take place.This is where the film treats us with an amazing shot of one of the blankets blowing in the wind slowly revealing David to Carver and his crew. The camera then beautifully and slowly zooms in on David from a distant as he drops the laundry basket and begins to pull out a gun. This leads to an epic and adrenaline pumping shoot out scene that completely took me by surprise. I found myself jumping up and down with excitement as if I'd never seen a gun blazing action scene before which is extraordinary for any movie to accomplish nowadays where climatic shoot out segments are the norm. 

I believe the pacing and tone established prior putting the viewers in a constant state of anticipation and alertness has a lot to do with he effectiveness of this moment's impact. Not only are the action elements astonishing to watch, but the characters that eventually die as a result is effective shock value material on its own. The type of people that you won't normally see get swiftly crossed off the chopping block are viscerally dealt with solidifying David at this point as a truly ruthless villain. Whether or not I saw the character shift coming from a mile away, the manner in which this scene is executed after building him up as this likable friend of the family with a shady past is still pretty shocking. Again, I gotta give a lot of props to the direction and pacing for making certain moments land a lot more strongly despite having a potentially generic or predictable foundation.

The film eventually leads up to a big finale taking place in a haunted house themed school maze which wouldn't have been my preferred setting for a final act, but it somehow manages to work here. In another predictable twist, Luke (the youngest son) takes the knife that David gave him in a previous scene for protection and stabs him after David almost strangles Anna to death. I just find it amazing how many glaringly foreshadowed story elements take place in this movie and yet, there still seems to be room for genuinely shocking reactions to come out of them. As we see both Anne and Luke sitting outside of an ambulance truck trying to comprehend the events that took place, we're given one final shocking twist as Anne recognizes David limping out of the school disguised which she responds "What the f#*?". Cue the ending credits and we have our movie in all of its completed glory.

But was this the strongest note to end things off on? Once those credits began rolling in, I immediately sat back in my seat with a scrambled look on my face repeating those same final words to myself. I kept pondering over why they would possibly conclude on such an abrupt manner until I eventually realized how perfectly it fitted with the previously established over the top tone. So with that said, The Guest is a great example of an entertaining movie that knows exactly what it is, and even in its most serious moments, can still manage to get a couple of good laughs in. This sensibility can be seen written all over the character of David's constant smirk almost as if he's looking to the audience saying "You have no idea what you've gotten yourselves into". Guys, I definitely recommend not letting this one slip under the radar.

Bonus Content

1. Halloween III: Season of the Witch Easter Egg

With the movie already feeling like a tonal and directional love letter to classic 80's horror and thrillers, The Guest solidifies its era inspirations with a fun visual reference to the cult classic, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. John Carpenter, who only acted as a producer for Season of the Witch, was clearly one of the legendary names in cinema that this movie's production team looked at in crafting their own suspenseful experience. Seeing the Silver Shamrock masks show up in the movie's school dance setting showdown was a nice little nod to Halloween III's heavily marketed costume imagery.

Rating: 8/10