The Guest (2014)
Directed by Adam Wingard
A soldier introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. After the young man is welcomed into their home, a series of accidental deaths seem to be connected to his presence.
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I’ll leave you to discover just how all this leads to a climactic chase through a Halloween maze in a high school gym with dry-ice machines at full tilt, set to a nerve-jangling synth score that evokes John Carpenter’s Halloween (to which Wingard, whose previous features have been low-budget horror films, explicitly pays homage).
The film is a worthy heir to the horror traditions of “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter, whose work is referenced via a tense electronic score and the occasional shot of a jack-o’-lantern, and Joseph Ruben, whose 1987 “The Stepfather” provided the template for this story in which a figure who should be worthy of respect and trust insinuates his way into an all-American family under false pretenses and with deadly consequences.
The camera partakes of the gliding reframing in movies from John Carpenter’s 1970s Steadicam heyday, and while there is full-frontal homage to movies ranging from “Halloween” to “Carrie” to “The Stepfather,” “The Terminator” and “Taxi Driver,” the movie holds its own with gleeful élan.
An expertly orchestrated final battle leaves us wanting more, much like John Carpenter's Halloween.
Where “You’re Next” was a punchy love note to Wes Craven (“Scream”), “The Guest” is a full-on wet kiss to John Carpenter (“Halloween”), atmospheric in the extreme and gilded with slithering synth lines and unnerving camera work.
The film is a worthy heir to the horror traditions of “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter, whose work is referenced via a tense electronic score and the occasional shot of a jack-o’-lantern, and Joseph Ruben, whose 1987 “The Stepfather” provided the template for this story in which a figure who should be worthy of respect and trust insinuates his way into an all-American family under false pretenses and with deadly consequences.
But they also belong to Henry Fonda in 1968’s Once Upon A Time In The West, or Terry O’Quinn in 1987’s The Stepfather, to name two prominent antecedents.
Two other echoes: David telling each family member what their fallen kin had told him: “He wanted me to tell you that he loved you,” parallels Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” punchline and of course each shot of David imparting his machined poise to the mother, the father, the sister, the little brother, offers eddies of Pasolini’s “Teorema,” with Stevens acting as a latter-day Terence Stamp, who seduced house and home because it was his due.
Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett came a-cropper with “You’re Next,” trying to make both a homage to and a send-up of a home-invasion thriller akin to Wes Craven’s similar take on the slasher movie in “Scream,” but here they hit the target straight-on, at least until the last reel.
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This "mysterious stranger with a deadly agenda" plot springboards into a madcap mix of crazy Vietnam War vet dramas, 1980s mad slasher thrillers (with a "Halloween"-like score), and an homage to Bruce Lee's last movie, "Enter the Dragon" with its climatic hall-of-mirrors smackdown.
The film gleefully recalls a very specific strain of Hollywood junk, such wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing potboilers as Fear and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.
David seems a version of Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Rebecca De Mornay’s nanny in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, or Matthew Goode in Stoker.
Think about a modern re-telling of Alfred Hitchcock’s “is he or isn’t he” stranger-in-town masterpiece Shadow of a Doubt with a dash of John Carpenter, and you’re on the right track.
David seems a version of Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Rebecca De Mornay’s nanny in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, or Matthew Goode in Stoker.
In some respects, “The Guest” resembles Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt.”
(The points of reference range from The Lady From Shanghai to Halloween to Gus Van Sant's Elephant.)
Elements of “The Manchurian Candidate” and “The Lady From Shanghai” come into play as a violent pursuit ensues.
Too many to explain, anyway, since at the climax the un-David must stalk through a haunted-house maze that conjures up memories of both the John Carpenter Halloween and Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai.
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The camera partakes of the gliding reframing in movies from John Carpenter’s 1970s Steadicam heyday, and while there is full-frontal homage to movies ranging from “Halloween” to “Carrie” to “The Stepfather,” “The Terminator” and “Taxi Driver,” the movie holds its own with gleeful élan.
This parodically retro thriller from You're Next writer/director team Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett comes on like a cross between Fright Night and The Stepfather , although Wingard cites The Terminator and "an idealised synthy John Carpenter 80s wonderland where it's always Halloween" as primary influences.
It’s The Terminator, The Stepfather, Halloween, The Thing, and all the other movies about mysterious strangers with secrets to hide.
His camp and commanding version of Hitchcock’s Uncle Charlie carries the film through its various stages, from deranged cuckoo in the nest potboiler to stalk and slash pic, via The Terminator.
(The points of reference range from The Lady From Shanghai to Halloween to Gus Van Sant's Elephant.)