If you thought You’re Next(2011) was good, you haven’t seen anything yet.
After Wingard directed You’re Next, his next film 3 years later was a brand new film called The Guest, which was personally one of my favourite films of 2014. I didn’t know it had come out, but I remember being asleep one night, dreaming about taking a hot date to a cabin in the mountains, or something weird like that…don’t worry about it. But around 3 am, my brother bursted into my room, laughing and woke me up and was like “Hey Andrew, ANDREWWW, YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS MOVIE I JUST WATCHED CALLED THE GUEST!” This has never happened before, and hasn’t happened since… so you know it was something special.
The Guest is a hard movie to tell the plot of, without ruining anything. So I’ll attempt to keep it really breezy, and spoiler free, you’ll probably think, “this sounds really awful, why does he love this movie? what is this?” but trust me on this, you’d be depriving yourself of a masterpiece of cinema. So The Guest is about A soldier being discharged by the military, and he goes to visit the family of a fallen member of his military unit, to deliver a message from their dead son. From there, he is welcomed into their home and mysterious accidents begin to happen.
I’m going to skip over Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s filmography, as I covered it pretty thoroughly in my You’re Next post #1. So we will go right into the actors!
Before this movie, I didn’t know the cast well, I recognized the father character – Spencer Peterson, played by Leland Orser. I was introduced to Orser when I watched David Fincher’s 1995 Se7en for the first time, which in turn is one of my favourite films of all time. He played the guy who was forced to have sex with a prostitute with something only someone really sadistic would come up with! I won’t go into detail with that one, but you know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the movie. I would say more famously, Orser plays Sam in the Taken franchise (2008-2014). I thought he did a great job in this movie.
More recently too after this movie, Maika Monroe has started to really make a name for herself. She plays Anna Peterson in this movie and does a fantastic job, she’s also very beautiful, so you know it doesn’t make for a bad watch. I thought she played the role of Anna very well. After The Guest, Monroe has starred in another well known horror flick of 2014, It Follows. In 2016, she was in Independence Day Resurgence. I really like her as an actor, she’s chosen some very interesting films that are definitely original. I haven’t seen Independence Day: Resurgence yet, but I definitely have that on my radar to check out.
Dan Stevens however plays the best role and steals the entire film out from everyone in this movie. He plays that character simply known as “David” he is the solider who comes to deliver the message from the Peterson’s son. He is just delightful, he’s mysterious, he’s hilarious and he delivers all the really amazing lines in the movie, with such glorious finesse. He was well known for starring in the BBC show Downton Abbey.
Which I should probably talk about a bit, Simon Barrett’s script for this movie. Its absolute genius. He delivers a very tense script, but some of the lines he has in the movie are downright hilarious, the scenes for sure are just glorious.
Adam Wingard again does an amazing job filming the movie. He is a master of showing us exactly what we are meant to see, and he doesn’t do long cuts, but is still able to create tension and just clever camera techniques.
The Soundtrack again, really stands out. The first time I watched the movie, I immediately watched it again…and then I went to download the soundtrack, and still 2 years later, I find myself turning it on and listening to Antonio, or one of the other great synth tracks. Its a great soundtrack to fit the era of the movie, which felt like a throwback to old 80s action movies, except much more clever.
My overall review of The Guest is 5/5. Yup you saw right, this movie is a masterpiece and utterly fun to watch. Also its highly rewatchable, I think I’ve seen it 15 times in 2 years, and I’ve recommended it already to a lot of people.
Fun Trivia about The Guest – theres 2 scenes in the movie that have little you’re next easter eggs. At a halloween party in the film, there is a costume of one of the masks that is used to hide the killers identity in You’re Next. Also at the school in the Guest, “You’re Next” is written on the wall. I thought it was a neat little easter egg for fans of You’re Next and I’m hoping we see some smart easter egg in Blair Witch.
Until Next Time!
-Andrew
**My next review to finish up this little overview before the release of the new Blair Witch, is the original Blair Witch Project. This is not an Adam Wingard film, but it is definitely worth it to add to the hype train of the new Blair Witch**