Anna Smith 

The Guest review – sometimes muddled, but always entertaining

Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens plays a stranger who infiltrates the home of a grieving family in a gleeful genre mashup, writes Anna Smith
  
  

The Guest
'An arch, knowing throwback to 80s horror-thrillers' … The Guest, starring Dan Stevens. Photograph: Everett Collection/REX Photograph: Everett Collection/REX

A charming stranger ingratiates himself with a bereaved family in this gleeful genre mash-up from the director of You're Next. American soldier David (Dan Stevens) arrives at the home of the Peterson family, claiming to have served alongside their dead son. Instantly winning over the grieving mother, he soon dissolves the father's suspicions and sets about helping their son with bullies. Only older daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) smells a rat, albeit still fighting an attraction to the handsome stranger. It all escalates into an arch, knowing throwback to 80s horror-thrillers that's muddled in parts but never less than entertaining: think a trashier version of last year's Stoker.

 

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