4K Restoration at the Alamo Drafthouse.
They should be thankful Ethan didn’t have a nuke in his trunk. Dan would’ve dropped it on the whole town just to get rid of some rando who glanced at him at a stoplight.
In retrospect, we know now that Stevens has the goods and he’s become a regular at portraying slightly off-kilter oddballs or abrasive weirdos, but back in the day, we were all still reeling from his shocking departure from Downton Abbey. Not Matthew! NOT. MATTHEW! The Guest was his first stab at a radical departure from any preconceived notion of what he was capable of and Wingard/Barrett brilliantly exploit his chiseled features and shockingly blue eyes to disarming effect in a fist-pumpingly bonkers throwback to the kind of human killing machine bone crunchers that went straight to video in the 80s and 90s.
Steve Moore’s pulsating electro synth score perfectly captures the intensity and single-minded drive within Stevens’ “programmed” super soldier. It’s best to experience The Guest with little to no preconceived notions beyond his former life as a soldier. His infiltration of a typical if floundering family initially doesn’t appear nefarious and his amiable demeanor is so disarming, that we, the audience, know something’s wrong. We just don’t know what. Through a series of near vignette scenarios where Stevens can swoop in and annihilate anyone or anything which stands in his or his pseudo-adopted family’s way, Stevens rolls over any obstacle like an M1A2 battle tank with a steely-eyed glint and lethal precision. It’s no wonder the entire family, even initially Maika Monroe (who doesn’t get FOLLOWED nearly enough here, just saying), is won over and even enamored of him. Let’s face it, the dude’s a fox, but he’s also adept at gaining a psychological edge over his targets with little to no prep. Hell, if I caught a glimpse of Dan after receiving a coupla cosmos and a BJ, I’d merely smile, tip my glass, and say: Keep ‘em comin’ and please don’t hurt me!
Is Barrett’s screenplay tailor-made to introduce loser, idiot characters for Stevens to dominate and ultimately destroy? Yes. Is the sudden appearance of Lance Reddick right out of Rambo? Sure. Is there an obligatory chase through a claustrophobic, impossibly elaborate area with multiple opportunities for cat-and-mouse fakeouts? What? Doesn’t EVERY high school create a Halloween dance maze that would probably cost triple its annual budget? Obviously, yes, yes, and more yes. Wingard directs with a self-assured brutality which manifests itself in blackly hilarious bits like diner patrons discovering too late that their Grand Slam came with grenades, not sausage.
The Guest is delightfully bonkers and even if its beats are familiar, it’s made with such efficiency and abandon that it’s ultimately a clever dissection of that old saying “Don’t play with fire. You might get burned.” Here, many burn and many die, but damn if it isn’t a blast to watch the fireworks.
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