Dir: Adam Wingard
Starring: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Leland Orser
Run time: 100 minutes
How do you reboot the Terminator for the synth-wave millennial generation? Well actually, I’m not sure and as a (at the time of writing) 35-year-old millennial myself I don’t think you can go far wrong than The Guest, penned by Simon Barrett.
Cast your mind back to Jim Cameron’s sophomore work, The Terminator. Mostly shot at night, the movie preyed on geopolitical fears of the time. This was a period of cinema that loved to portray a social underclass doused in perpetual twilight. It focused on a fearsome rung of society introduced and popularised by Walter Hill’s classic, The Warriors.
This pocket of society was cartoonish by design; largely overblown by Fox News and Republican mouthpieces. They flippantly depicted lower classes as a place where poor and debauched underclasses waged street wars, pushed drugs, killed each other and railed against decent society just to spread fear and prove an ill-defined point.
Fast forward three decades and The Guest asked in plain terms: what if the raw, primal essence of society’s darkest impulses was masquerading as something pure, wholeseome and pro-American? It could exist right under your very nose; the Terminator by blue skies and blazing daylight, wearing the most human of faces, indistinguishable from the enemy.
Could you tell the difference? Or has the concept of ‘wholeseome’ Americana bled beyond parody to become something macabre and chameleon?
Okay I’ve waffled enough. What’s The Guest really about? It begins with the Peterson family who live in the arse-end of nowhere, devastated by the news that their son, brother and sibling, Caleb, has been killed in some faceless middle-eastern war. The mother is utterly devastated and the kids are maybe too young to fully comprehend the loss Caleb represents.
But then out of the blue, Caleb’s squad mate, David Collins (Stevens) appears on the Peterson’s doorstep. He explains to Caleb’s mother that her son’s dying wish was that David check in on his family and help them out, no matter what they need.
Immediately you get thrown into a sense of unease. Is David sincere in wanting to help the family, or is he truly who he says he is? The writing is so perfect that it’s hard to make a conclusion early on, and that’s a perfect summary of the movie – just when you think you have it figured it, things take a huge turn that spins everything out of whack.
Before you even have time to piece together what’s happening, the Peterson family has allowed David to stay in their son’s room indefinitely. He’s said the right things and capitalised on their grief with laser precision, so that they have no choice but to let him stay.
Is David conning this simple family? This is a presumption we’ve been manipulated into believing, and that’s the true beauty of this movie. Is David just a nice guy trying to protect his friends family or does he have sinister motive? You’ll be guessing for a long time if you don’t overthink it and have fun.
At this point, and in something of a twist on this blog’s format, I’m going to make this a short review, so to not spoil the movie’s several big twists and reveals. Apologies if you wanted something longer.
But, because this is an action movie blog, I have to at least explain if and why The Guest succeeds in its genre. Without giving much away I can say yes, it succeeds in delivering a few well framed action set pieces while maintaining high emotional stakes.
Again, no spoilers as to what happens, but we do see a handful of expertly-shot action set pieces that rely on small encounters and sets. The action feels more deliberate, existing as a means of moving the plot forward rather than checking some arbitrary check box to keep audiences happy.
As an action movie, it succeeds for the best part, without trying to shoot too high. I mean if you squint hard enough, The Guest could take place in the same shit-hole town as Napoleon Dynamite. In fact, the town’s inherent, almost fantastical shittyness sells the movie’s twisted logic in many ways, and that’s surely a triumph for an action movie concept so twisted and unique.
But yes, again, I’m being ultra-coy around what this movie is actually about. All I’ll say in closing is that The Guest is best viewed without any pre-knowledge, and an open mind approach. Otherwise, it tells a decent thriller story before exploding outward in unexpected ways – it’s just a shame the movie tries a little too hard to be unpredictable that it stretches our sense of disbelief to breaking point.
Depending on your approach to movies, The Guest can feel like it jumps the shark so badly, you end up in the stratosphere. But for those who like to just roll with the punches, you’ll likely get a kick out of this screwball movie, even if it smashes logic and reason into a million tiny pieces.
Seriously, give this a try, but I can’t guarantee you’ll all like it.
(P.S. – this is maybe the hardest review I’ve written for The Hipfire yet, as I really don’t want to say anything about the movie before you see it.)
Just give it a shot and see what you think!
Final score: 7 reloads out of 10
Pros:
- Dan Stevens is a revelation as always. His work on Legion alone is proof that he’s a top-tier actor.
- The first two-thirds are a lesson in tense thriller movie making. You’ll ask just what the heck is going on, and try to piece it together. That’s seriously powerful.
- The supporting Peterson family are great, with proper character arcs and personas to latch on to.
- The soundtrack is freaking awesome!
Cons:
- There are many huge gaps in logic you have to accept for the movie to work.
- The big twist could be dealbreaker for you.
The Hipfire 