The Guest
This season I have been looking at Movies that are on my favourite lists. This time I decided to look at movie I saw once, ten years ago. Which I did remember being good. However, as my memory is not what it used to be, let’s see if I still like it.
The Guest (2013) 129 minutes (Spoilers)
The Guest tells the story of David (Dan Stevens) who decides to visit the family of a fellow soldier and is invited to stay. In doing so he starts helping the family with there problems, which very slowly starts to turn very sinister. Which by the way I love, as this movie is pretty still amazing.
The movie is very thrilling, it starts out really slow then it slowly ramps up to almost a horror movie at times. It goes from what could be conceived as a slice of life movie, then by the end we are very much in a action movie. For me this move gives me the same vibes as the original Terminator. Which very much David turns to be.
The best part of this movie is Dan Stevens; his portal of David is amazing. There are so many little things he does to make David seem extra creepy. Some of the things I noticed were; the way he sits when he’s alone, It’s very still and robot like. Which is why I compared him to the terminator. David is also effortless charming with everyone he interacts with; which shows how much of a psychopath. Which is more apparent with the sex scene, where there is large Sub/Dom energy. Whats even more impressive, when David is on the run he is still trying to charm people before he decides to kill everyone.
Lets talk about the action. There a few set pieces, that are all great. The bar scene is particularly good. The way the fight is shot, makes me feel like it was inspired from an old Chinese Kung-Fu movie. Which I don’t know if it was meant to be done that way, but that’s just the way I see it. If you instructed have a look at the scene on YouTube; or better yet watch the movie! When we get to end of the movie the action really ramps up. With almost every other scene is an action scene. What I do love that is David is a excellent marksman as he is killing off the other guys. Then it really becomes a murder spree, as just so many people just get killed.
I haven’t even mention the music and score of the film. Which is also just adds to the movie, as the soundtrack is very 80’s synths. Which I am fam of, as lot of the time I don’t notice the music, only when its really bad. Which this film isn’t it just add to a mystic of this film, and makes feel like it could be set in the 80s. Which I feel like this a throwback to 80’s action thrillers.
A few other things I enjoyed in this movie is the, hate crime scene. Even though its completely bullshit, it still funny how everything is negotiated down. The program that David was enrolled in is really fucked up, but that helps the movie. There is some nice framing with David dying in the graveyard. The jump scare of the title card. The only thing I don’t like is, this didn’t get a squeal.
The fact this movie didn’t get a sequel doesn’t mean it needed it. it would have just been nice to follow on from the end we got. As I wanted to see if would be a cat and mouse thing. Or would be the more what we got, but this time with a different family in the middle of nowhere.
All in all I don’t think my words can do this movie justice. If you’ve never seen this, watch it, and have watched it and see if you still like it the way I do. At time of writing in the UK is available on ITVX. If you do watch this and want to leave a comment please do.
