While director Adam Wingard's latest offering, the slasher film Onslaught, recently arrived with a visceral impact, it's his 2014 independent thriller, The Guest, that warrants a revisit, especially as the Halloween season approaches. Despite Onslaught's shared universe connection to The Guest, familiarity with the latter is not essential for enjoying the former, though The Guest itself remains a compelling watch.
The Guest introduces Dan Stevens as David Collins, a seemingly benevolent U.S. soldier who arrives at the doorstep of the grieving Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son, Caleb, who recently died in battle. David quickly integrates himself into the family, offering support and assistance in various ways.
He mentors Caleb's younger brother, Luke, in self-defense, encouraging him to use a butterfly knife. He also spends time with Caleb's sister, Anna, leading to a romantic encounter and plans to acquire a firearm. Even Caleb's father benefits, receiving help with a promotion at work, seemingly orchestrated by David.
Stevens' performance is so captivating that David appears to be a genuinely helpful figure for much of the film. However, a significant spoiler reveals that David is not who he claims to be. He is, in fact, an unstable super soldier created through a top-secret government experiment. This revelation triggers a lethal response protocol, leading David to eliminate the Peterson family and their associates.
The film culminates in a violent confrontation when the military, led by Lance Reddick, intervenes. David dispatches the soldiers and the Peterson parents before pursuing Luke and Anna to their high school, where they ultimately manage to subdue him. David's escape leaves the door open for a sequel, though the connection to Wingard's later film Onslaught is tenuous at best, with Stevens portraying entirely different characters.
Deconstructing the Idealized Family
According to The Guest screenwriter Simon Barrett, the film's core motivation was to deconstruct the concept of the American nuclear family. Barrett explained his interest in introducing a disruptive element into an established family dynamic, drawing parallels to classic stranger-in-town narratives like High Plains Drifter.
Wingard visually reinforces this theme through the film's setting, which often presents a brightly colored, almost painfully idyllic suburban landscape. This facade is progressively shattered by David's escalating violence. Even before the climactic showdown, scenes such as a party early in the film hint at a darker undercurrent beneath the polished surface of suburbia.
The soundtrack, inspired by '90s action films like Mortal Kombat and The Matrix, contributes a blend of goth rock and electronic music that adds a disquieting atmosphere. The film suggests that the darkness is inherent, brought to light only by the arrival of a character like David.
Onslaught amplifies this sense of pervasive darkness, presenting a world where violence and destruction are commonplace. It depicts a scenario where the pursuit of scientific progress comes at the cost of innocent lives, suggesting a world populated by figures like David, where collateral damage is an accepted consequence.
In this context, The Guest can be seen as a thematic precursor to Onslaught, not in terms of narrative continuity, but as a showcase for the creative vision of its filmmakers, who consistently explore the unsettling intersection of genre tropes and societal commentary.
