I was convinced this film was set in the 1980s until someone whipped out a laptop. The retro aesthetic recalls Nicolas Winding Refn's interminable Drive, but this is a far smarter and snappier film. Dan Stevens even resembles Ryan Gosling, except Stevens remembered to pack his charisma. In a star-making performance, he's mesmerising as an angel-eyed demon. Fans of Downton Abbey may be surprised to find him affecting a soft Southern American drawl and stabbing women in the heart.
Stevens plays David, who turns up on the doorstep of the grieving mother of his Marine unit buddy. He claims to have been friends with her son; to have watched him die. David gradually seduces the entire family: preying on the parents' emotional vulnerabilities; protecting the son from bullies; flashing his pecs to the daughter. There's great enjoyment and inherent humour in the fact that we know he's up to no good while the family fall for his pragmatic charms. (Hitchcock would have been grunting with delight.) Only when the bodies start piling up do the family start asking questions of their guest.
Apart from Stevens, all the actors bring their "A" game, to be fair. I particularly enjoyed Leland Orser's perennially nervous father, with his sad eyes and his burgeoning alcoholism, still in the denial stage. Maika Monroe also gets a juicy role as the hormonal daughter, negotiating her way around a community of jock douchebags and petty drug dealers.
CGI-free and reference-heavy, from the towering title font to the moody synth score, this is a direct throwback to those late-'80s/early-'90s domestic stalker thrillers that we 30-somethings remember watching in secret on fuzzy VHS. The Hitcher, Cape Fear, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Sleeping with the Enemy et al all loom heavy, along with countless movies with words like "Fatal" and "Deception" in the title. At its best it's like John Carpenter in his ruthlessly efficient heyday.
The first two thirds of the film are an engrossing and surprisingly plausible slow burn, before events surge inexorably toward the pyrotechnic. The final act is bold but nonsensical, failing to live up to what preceded it. But overall this is superior, nasty B-movie fun, and far more inventive and darkly witty than Adam Wingard's previous film, the strangely overrated You're Next. Highly recommended.
Stevens plays David, who turns up on the doorstep of the grieving mother of his Marine unit buddy. He claims to have been friends with her son; to have watched him die. David gradually seduces the entire family: preying on the parents' emotional vulnerabilities; protecting the son from bullies; flashing his pecs to the daughter. There's great enjoyment and inherent humour in the fact that we know he's up to no good while the family fall for his pragmatic charms. (Hitchcock would have been grunting with delight.) Only when the bodies start piling up do the family start asking questions of their guest.
Apart from Stevens, all the actors bring their "A" game, to be fair. I particularly enjoyed Leland Orser's perennially nervous father, with his sad eyes and his burgeoning alcoholism, still in the denial stage. Maika Monroe also gets a juicy role as the hormonal daughter, negotiating her way around a community of jock douchebags and petty drug dealers.
CGI-free and reference-heavy, from the towering title font to the moody synth score, this is a direct throwback to those late-'80s/early-'90s domestic stalker thrillers that we 30-somethings remember watching in secret on fuzzy VHS. The Hitcher, Cape Fear, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Sleeping with the Enemy et al all loom heavy, along with countless movies with words like "Fatal" and "Deception" in the title. At its best it's like John Carpenter in his ruthlessly efficient heyday.
The first two thirds of the film are an engrossing and surprisingly plausible slow burn, before events surge inexorably toward the pyrotechnic. The final act is bold but nonsensical, failing to live up to what preceded it. But overall this is superior, nasty B-movie fun, and far more inventive and darkly witty than Adam Wingard's previous film, the strangely overrated You're Next. Highly recommended.