Home Movies

An ice-cold action thriller leads a deadly double life on streaming

Thrills, chills, and plenty of blood that spills.

the guest
via Picturehouse

For the most part, cult classics don’t tend to generate sequels, especially when part of the process in securing such a status in the first place often tends to stem from an unfairly disappointing performance at the box office. Adam Wingard’s The Guest definitely ticks that box after earning less than $3 million from theaters, but it did get a follow-up of a sort.

Recommended Videos

Those clamoring to see more from the carefully curated world on display in the 2014 action thriller were rewarded with a musical sequel that acted as official canon in the world of The Guest, if that makes sense. Admittedly, it didn’t to a lot of people, but the team behind the audio accompaniment have hinted that a live-action successor may yet emerge one day in the future.

the guest

As it stands, then, Dan Stevens’ mysterious arrival and immediate impact on a small town family remains a stellar one-and-done effort that deftly balanced bone-rattling action and slasher movie vibes with violent thrills and a smartly-constructed story to yield what’s almost the textbook definition of a true gem.

Streaming subscribers are in agreement, too, after FlixPatrol outed The Guest as having re-emerged on the iTunes global most-watched chart on multiple countries this week. Stevens’ David Collins is clearly not who he claims to be, but the narrative doesn’t play any of its major hands too early, with things culminating in a palm-sweating chase through a house of mirrors that doesn’t exactly turn out the way you’d expect, which is for the better.