by Brendan Foley
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
The Guest asks the age old question: if Dan Stevens showed up to your house and was likely to murder you, would you let him in? Sure you would! All sorts of mayhem ensues from there, and the synth-scored madness made quite a splash on the indie circuit last year.
With Stevens and co-star Maika Monroe blowing up all the over the place (Monroe’s incredible lead performance in It Follows landed on Blu-ray a couple weeks ago), the Two Cents team decided to invite The Guest over and see if we might like him to stay.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
“As if!” We travel way back to the distant year of 1995 when girls could be named Cher and Paul Rudd looked…basically the exact same. That dude’s got highlander juice in him. We’ll learn just what high school was really like with the cult classic Clueless, so join in the fun!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Guests
Dianna Koch:
Badly marketed and completely undersold, The Guest is a really good flick that deserves more credit. I went into this one pretty much blind, besides being familiar with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s prior work.
The Guest did not disappoint. The movie is FUN, but also quite funny (Stevie B playing while a diner explodes? COUNT ME IN.). A lot of the humor is subtle and self-aware, which I feel gives this film an edge. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, but still really compelling, a la Scream (though not nearly as meta). The Guest is in on the joke, and it’s a smart, well-thought-out one. The film never slows down, and doesn’t suffer from a lackluster ending. The third act is what made it for me, and what will make this a go-to October viewing for many years to come. The writing is fantastic. I absolutely love Wingard and Barrett together. They seem to vibe really well off each other, and their vision really showed here. The fact that The Guest came out last year, and I still recommend it to everyone (“It’s like The Terminator meets Halloween“), regardless of their tastes, really says something.
Oh, and the soundtrack rocks. (@diannank)
Sara K. Lewis:
SO GOOD. I didn’t think a film about a veteran coming home would be very interesting to me, but it was FAR from the sad PTSD tale I thought I was getting into! (–Sara)
Dustin J. Wallace:I really loved this movie. To me, The Guest feels like all of the great thrillers I grew up on. Everything from the soundtrack to the way the suspense builds in the story is great, and a few times I caught myself going “here’s where things are going to turn” and was wrong, which I love. I highly recommend checking it out. (@DustinWTP)
John Wren:
While Adam Wingard didn’t exactly win me over with You’re Next, I did take away a lot of positives from that film. Maybe it was because I’ve seen that story before and it didn’t do anything to separate itself from the pack, aside from the lead actress, but I could see potential, especially since he surrounds himself with a team I really like (Ti West/AJ Bowen/Joe Swanberg). However, with The Guest, which is another retelling of the whole “wolf in sheep’s clothing” film, Wingard seems to have found whatever it was that was missing. Whether it be the throwback cinematography, his reliance on lead Dan Stevens to take control of every scene he’s in, or maybe it was the stylish soundtrack, but I found myself hooked from almost the beginning and my attention never waned even though I was discovering how predictable it was becoming. The Guest, along with It Follows, is one of the more memorable films I have seen this year that wasn’t part of the MCU and surprisingly, while different genres completely, they have a lot of similarities in their delivery. (@wrenxxx )
Kevin Ireland:
I overlooked this flick on Netflix. It looked like another home invasion stranger-danger story. I’d already seen You’re Next; it’s hard to beat (turns out it is by the same team, so well played). The Guest wants you to make this mistake in order to underestimate it, and it makes the ride all the more exciting.
The film’s greatest strength (beyond Dan Stevens’ performance) is its versatility. Just when you have The Guest pinned down it shifts right out of your grasp. Whatever the film’s tone needs to be at the moment it is: It’s a thriller, a horror movie, an action movie, a comedy and a family story in distinct chunks. It keeps shifting to fit the situation like the eponymous Guest does to infiltrate the family.
There is little explicit character foundation to the family characters beyond single notes (numb, drunk, wimp, stuck), but you can easily fill in the blanks yourself of how the loss of their son/brother has stunted each of them and how the appearance of their Guest causes them to make the poor decisions they do. This fine film doesn’t have time to hold your hand, it has better places to go. (@jackofhearts616)
The Team
Justin:
The Guest was one of those indie darling festival films that intrigued me from the time I heard about it. As I don’t get to attend festivals and rarely get to theaters, I purchased an ultraviolet copy last year. Somehow, that copy went unwatched for a few months, and I finally checked it out this spring. Once I watched, I wondered what the hell took me so long because I love it.
I’ve heard it called a thriller, a horror, an action flick, and a variety of combinations of these and other genre labels. Its inability to be pigeonholed is part of what makes it so enjoyable. The suspense is there, there are certainly moments of sheer terror, and the action sequences are phenomenal.
The writing is solid. The characters are compelling. The nuances and complexities of what is good vs. what is evil is what had me thinking about this film often. Humans can sometimes be monsters, but monsters can also have that human side.
One of my top films that I watched for the first time this year, no doubt. (@thepaintedman)
Liam:
The Guest is my version of a popcorn film. It is so satisfying and entertaining that I have enjoyed every rewatch. It is, in a very meaningful way, satisfying. Very satisfying. I don’t think that is just because I find its leads, Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe, so attractive. No, The Guest is my kind of popcorn movie because it is smart, funny, and exciting without being about very much. Sure, there are some inherent criticisms of militarism, and it should be obvious that our titular “Guest,” though the killer, is not nearly as much the villain as the greater military system which created him. Yet, focusing too much on these sorts of ideas is a distraction. The film plays with genre, but it is not making a statement about genre. It is, at its essence, telling a compelling story. I can put it on, and its playful use of horror tropes, slick playlist, and dynamic action draw me in. It isn’t horror, it isn’t wish fulfillment, it isn’t even a traditional soldier comes home film. The Guest is it’s own kind of film, and I just love it. (@liamrulz)
Frank:
I know I’m going to be one of the very few who will say it, but The Guest is just not a good movie. I had high hopes that were quickly dashed when I caught a late night screening of it at SXSW in 2014 and thought maybe a year was enough time to give it a second look. Sadly though, The Guest is still as unwelcome as ever.
The plot is ludicrous in a way that doesn’t resemble anything remotely fun, the production is sloppy, and the whole movie can’t escape this been there, done that feel throughout. Its okay for a movie to be a throwback in terms of plot, but not if its going to be doing it in ways which are uninteresting and thrown together.
The lone saving grace of The Guest is Dan Stevens. His performance is truly out of this world brilliant and is filled with the kind of calculating intensity and stirring terror usually found in better thrillers. The scene in the bar with Caleb’s little brother stands as a perfect example of the level of commitment Stevens brings to the role (it’s also the only scene in The Guest I liked). If nothing else, the film provides the actor a chance to shed his Downton trappings and perfectly dive into the mindset of a soulless monster. (@frankfilmgeek)
Brendan:
The Guest is the best kind of genre entry where you can see the heritage that it owes to the classics, but it does its own thing with its own firm voice. Yes there is a lot of Carpenter and Cameron mixed into the core of this film’s DNA, but director/editor Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett aren’t interested in just ticking off boxes of references, or of spending the runtime of their film reminding you of other movies you’d rather be watching. Instead, they synthesized their forebears and added in their own perspective, style, and a thrillingly modern metaphor to ground the ridiculous events of the films.
The Guest doesn’t build to as quite a satisfying payoff as the duo’s previous film, You’re Next, but Barrett’s script does a remarkable job of parceling out information, and Wingard shows some real muscle in how he orchestrates mayhem and keeps the narrative and character stuff chugging along.
Finally, no appreciation of this film is complete without acknowledging the inhuman awesome that is Dan Stevens. He’s like a cartoon prince charming, but able to snap on a dime and play utter insanity. That guy is going to be around for a while. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Austin:
A well-rounded, slick, and thoughtful movie, The Guest, which sits comfortably in my Top 10 for 2014, is a film that scratches a lot of itches. A pleasing mix of horror, action, family drama, and a dark sense of humor. The moody synth music is incredible. And seeing the picked-on kid beat the snot out of a bully will never, ever get old.
What’s amazing to me is that the villain, played perfectly by Dan Stevens, is so darn charming. We know he’s the bad guy. We know he’s distorting the facts and manipulating an innocent family, but he’s also weirdly helping them out. I’m still not clear on his motivations, which get muddier as the bigger story develops. Helpful family man, psychotic murderer, PTSD sufferer, or tragic antihero? The answer isn’t simple, but the massive level on which The Guest engages its audience is. (@VforVashaw)
James:
I love me a good ’80s exploitationer, and Adam Wingard’s brutally efficient The Guest does a better job than most at aping the likes of The Terminator and Halloween. Which is not surprising from the director of the similarly sly slasher You’re Next. Featuring Downton Abbey’s very own Dan Stevens as super-soldier David (if that is indeed his real name) whose mixture of insidious charm and dreamy blue eyes inveigles himself on a dead military mate’s bereaved family — with lethal results.
What starts out as an absorbing thriller as we try to work out David’s mysterious past suddenly warps into an outlandish, full-on action psycho-thriller — which is as unexpected as it is jarring. Some may find the shift in tone a little too much, but if you know your cinematic onions and can spot all the references, you’ll enjoy the subsequent homage-ride even more.
Featuring a refreshingly high body count, a ruthless yet ambiguous tone and, alongside a great Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe, a pleasingly recognizable cast including Leland Orser and Lance Reddick as Major Exposition, The Guest careers towards its brutal, sequel-baiting conclusion in style. (@jconthagrid)
Ed:
My wife isn’t really a movie person like I am. I probably watch a solid 75 movies to her 1. BUT, when you get her in just the right frame of mind in the right kind of movie… she’s a hitter. Like she uncontrollably lashes out and hits whoever is next to her when the tension is too much. The Guest rated 3.5 uncontrollable hits to my person! (The .5 because one hit caught me in both my arm and my chest). According to my wife, The Guest falls very squarely into a “scary movie” categorization. Funnily enough, I tend to think of it as an action film. And as a testament to its greatness… we’re both right. It’s also a mystery, a thriller, a coming of age tale, a PTSD exploration, an ’80s throwback, and a bonafide star-maker for lead actor Dan Stevens. There’s really nothing I don’t like about The Guest, from the synth soundtrack to the tight writing to the clever and uncomfortable performances and stylized direction from Adam Wingard. It’s also nice to confirm that it all still works beautifully even on a second watch once you know where it is all headed. (@Ed_Travis)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!