The Guest - 2014 film review

The storyline of The Guest is a mash-up of home invasion thriller, conspiracy thriller, and Halloween thriller. There is plenty of violence and some points in the plot aren't entirely clear (apparently there was more explanation in the original version, but this was cut after preview audiences felt it was long-winded). Really, it should be a mess. But although it has trashy elements, it's surprisingly watchable.

This is in part due to the fact that the protagonist is played by Dan Stevens, who is quietly-spoken and charming, but with a faint undercurrent of menace. One day he turns up out of the blue at the home in New Mexico of a grieving family, the Petersons. He explains to Laura Peterson (Sheila Kelley) that his name is David Collins and that he was the best friend of Caleb, the Petersons' son, a soldier who died recently in the Middle East. She invites him to stay for a while and he meets her husband Spencer (Leland Orsler), their gay son Luke (Brendan Meyer) and their daughter Anna (Maika Monroe). At first Spence and Anna are hostile towards him, but he gradually wins everyone's confidence.

But it's clear almost from the start that David is not as nice as he seems. In particular, he has an extreme propensity for serious violence and a disturbing talent for manipulating people. I thought the film was heading in a fairly conventional direction, but then came a significant plot development which changed my perception of what was going on. But it would still have been good to know why David really went to the Petersons' house, and what exactly made him behave the way he did. By cutting down the explanation, I think the director threw the baby out with the bath water.

Even so, I found this film fairly gripping, in a sort of guilty-pleasures way. A twist right at the end of the movie left the door open for a sequel, which was apparently contemplated, but never actually made. Don't expect anything too sophisticated from The Guest, but there's a reason why it was well reviewed. It's well-paced and a perfectly good time-passer.