Psychological Thriller
Distributor:
Icon Distribution
Release Date:
5th September 2014 (UK), 21st August (FF2014)
Rating: 15
Running Time:
99 Minutes
Director:
Adam Winguard
Cast:
Dan Stevens, Maika Munroe, Brenden Meyer, Lance Reddick
Never slow to pick up on the burning issues of the day, the horror genre is always ready to use hot topics to its own benefit. During the days of atomic testing in the 1950s, mutated insects roamed the planet in films like Them (1954). By the late 1970s when space was the new frontier, threats came from beyond the stars in big budget horrors like Alien (1979).
With this in mind it was only a matter of time before contemporary filmmakers looked to a subject which touches all our lives to some extent, for the basis of their work. In the new horror / thriller The Guest (2014) director Adam Wingard does just this, investigating the psychological and emotional effect modern warfare has on soldiers and their families to disturbing effect.
Laura and Spenser Peterson (Sheila Kelley and Leland Orser), along with their teenage children Anna (Maika Monroe) and Luke (Brendan Meyre), are struggling to accept the death of their older son Caleb in the war in Afghanistan. When ex-soldier David (Dan Stevens) appears on their doorstep one morning, claiming to be a friend of their dead son, Laura and Spenser find a sense of connection with Caleb by welcoming the stranger into their home. But is David all he seems? The Peterson family are about to discover to their cost that there is more to their new houseguest than meets the eye, and that his arrival will have terrifying consequences for them all.
In his first major starring role outside of television, Downton Abbey heartthrob Stevens stays just the right side of creepy as the outwardly benign David, who hides a nastily psychotic side beneath a deceptively caring facade. Monroe - last seen in the gritty drama Labor Day (2013) - also creates impact as the suspicious Anna into whose affections David insidiously worms his way. Small town America with all its 'apple pie' charm, as well as the claustrophobic frustration felt by its inhabitants, is wonderfully visualised on screen. The intensity of the setting is merely emphasised by the arrival of the enigmatic David, heightening the film's mounting air of disquiet.
It's always dangerous for a filmmaker to utilise techniques and set-pieces which - whilst not quite ripping off past classics shot for shot - are near enough in their visualisation to warrant accusations of, at best a lack of originality, and worst plagiarism. The final scenes of Wingard's film may fall short of the latter, but are never-the-less close enough in spirit to several outings from the golden age of 1980s slashers, to show a certain absence of inspiration. What was clearly meant as an homage to those teenager-in-peril landmarks, this film's climax is instead a pale imitation of the past. Which is a shame as the previous ninety minutes holds such promise.
The question of course arises as to the taste in the use of sensitive subjects matters - in this case the possible advancements in technological warfare - for what is, after all, mere entertainment. But since the horror genre is not widely known for its diplomacy in the handling of contentious issues, such thorny moral points are unlikely to trouble the consciences of the film's core audience of thrill seekers. Considering this, The Guest effectively delivers what is required of it, in a manner which it just manages to sustain until the final reel.