The Guest

A transcendent comic chiller, when The Guest's characters are in peril we actually care, and Wingard respectfully makes the kills clean and quick.

The coat of irony helps when the film takes a major pivot in tone, and Stevens is unnervingly placid as the corn-fed terminator.

Wingard’s direction is a robust throwback to the VHS gorefests of yore, but with a distinctly more modern slickness and snap, and he knows how to play around with the audience.

The Guest is blood-soaked action trash of a high grade.

Turns out to be more suspenseful and keenly plotted than most, with a compelling centerpiece performance by Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) that deserves attention.

Wingard is also clearly enamored of the synthesized soundtracks of Giallo and John Carpenter films, and here, he turns that into a whole thing, too: A mix Anna makes for David becomes a plot point, giving the director an excuse to practically drench his scenes in dreamy electronica.

Until it becomes completely demented, The Guest is a perfectly respectable thriller, and even when it stops being respectable — even when it goes off the rails and becomes ridiculous — it’s still entertaining.

David is a smooth motherf***er! No disappointments! I have nothing else to say, so I'm just gonna type a bunch of characters until I reach 150 'cause... aaaaaaand I've reached it. (Y)

First half of the movie was great, but have to ruined everything later. All in all, it's fun to watch.

Eine Familie trauert um den in Afghanistan verstorbenen Sohn. Unverhoffte Ablenkung verschafft sein Kriegskamerad David (Dan Stevens), der sich charmant und hilfsbereit in ihren Alltag drängt – durch verständnisvolle Gespräche mit den Eltern, eine Sixpack-Vorführung für die verwirrte Tochter und einen Satz Prügel für die Bullys von Sohn Luke. Dass der Überraschungsgast Tödliches zu verbergen hat, ist angesichts der Regievergangenheit Adam Wingards klar: Schließlich war You’re next ein knallharter Home-Invasion-Slasher. Auch The Guest ist brachial blutig, hat seine Wurzeln aber im 80s-Action-Thriller – was Wingard mit bewusst peinlichen Prollszenen, übersteuerten Farben und einem pumpenden Carpenter-Soundtrack verdeutlicht. So unterhält The Guest nach einem etwas zähen Start auf hohem technischen Niveau, überrascht in puncto Action, jedoch niemals beim Plot.

All those "green" ratings must be from people with a crush on Dan Stevens. I admit he was charismatic but that's about it. This movie is absurd. Nothing original here, just lots of cliches and violence. I give a 1 for the main character and a 2 for the first half of the movie which was fine. The rest is a big zero. Seriously, this movie getting a 7+ overall rating shows how the bar is low these days with people. The world is really sinking in a sea of mediocrity. People eating crappy food, listening to crappy music and watching crappy movies.

Illogical, bad acting and unsupportable final scene... what the hell. It's like they tried to imitate the vibe from the movie "Drive" but badly done..