The Guest (2014)

Hello. I served with your son. This week we're unlocking the front door and letting in The Guest (2014) — Adam Wingard's neon-soaked, synth-drenched, John Carpenter-worshipping action thriller that is simultaneously one of the most purely entertaining genre films of the decade and one of the most quietly devastating post-9/11 meditations on what America does to its soldiers. Also, Dan Stevens is absolutely terrifying and magnetic and you will not be able to take your eyes off him for a single second.Written by Simon Barrett and directed by Adam Wingard, the film follows David (Dan Stevens), a US soldier who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of the Peterson family — a grieving military household that lost their son Caleb in Afghanistan — claiming to be Caleb's best friend delivering a final message. The family welcomes him in. He is charming, helpful, and devastatingly handsome. And then people start dying. Maika Monroe plays Anna, the teenage daughter who starts putting the pieces together, with Lance Reddick, Leland Orser, and Sheila Kelley rounding out the family, and a Halloween-season small-town New Mexico setting providing the perfect backdrop for everything to spectacularly, violently unravel.We're going all in on everything: Dan Stevens' jaw-dropping physical and psychological transformation from Downton Abbey heartthrob into something genuinely dangerous and almost supernaturally charming — Wingard said Stevens was "the only serious contender" for the role and that he "spent hours in the gym" to physically become David — Steve Moore's legendary synth score that is one of the greatest genre soundtracks of the 21st century, Wingard and Barrett's loving but sharp homage to the John Carpenter thriller tradition, Maika Monroe's performance that launched one of the best careers in contemporary genre film, and the film's brilliantly escalating third act that ends in a burning Halloween haunted house with everything on fire. Critics compared it to the work of early John Carpenter and James Cameron at their lean, mean indie best.We're also asking the big questions: is The Guest the most underrated genre film of the 2010s? Is Dan Stevens' David one of the great movie monsters of the decade? And why does a film this good, this stylish, and this entertaining still fly so far under the radar?Whether you're a genre thriller fanatic, a Dan Stevens devotee, a Maika Monroe fan, a synth score obsessive, a John Carpenter worshipper, an Adam Wingard completist, or just someone who loves a lean, perfectly calibrated thriller that knows exactly what it is and delivers on every single promise — this episode is essential.Topics covered: The Guest 2014 | Adam Wingard | Dan Stevens | Maika Monroe | Simon Barrett | Lance Reddick | best thriller films 2010s | best synth soundtracks | Steve Moore score | John Carpenter influence | underrated thrillers | best hidden gem films | cult thriller films | Dan Stevens post Downton Abbey | Dan Stevens transformation | military thriller | Halloween themed films | genre filmmaking | You're Next Adam Wingard | best action thrillers | best performances 2010s | Maika Monroe early career | New Mexico films | best cult films | movie review podcast | film analysis | stranger comes to town films | most underrated films of the decade | best movie soundtracks | B-movie elevated | 80s throwback filmsSubscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: would you have let David stay? Be honest. We know the answer.YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMentholContact us: [email protected]