Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

If you’ve never seen The Guest before, and you love action movies, it’s an absolute must, says Alasdair Stuart.

Dan Stevens stamped his identity as horror’s favourite Weird Little Guy on the world with this one, directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett. It’s so, so dark, and weirdly very funny and has an end of act two twist which is one of my favourite reveals of all time. Seriously, if you’ve not seen it go in cold.

If you have, I suspect you’re cackling at the trailer for Onslaught as much as I am. Wingard and Barrett’s new movie stares genre MVP Adria Arjona as a former Army sniper living in a desert trailer park with her daughter. This trailer park appears to be adjacent to a catastrophic field test of psychologically and physically enhanced super soldiers and, well, the movie’s called Onslaught. Some quick thoughts on the trailer, which will hopefully not spoil The Guest.

0.14 – ‘I got an emergency meeting. You’re up, mom.’

Always here for a good ‘Just when I thought I was out, moment.’ This nameless gentleman screams Tactical Community to me with his back facing shades and not-quite tactical jacket.

0.16 – Sheets

The A24 logo revealed through the sheets is a beat for beat call back to a pivotal reveal in The Guest.  Also, the locations are very similar…

0.19 – ‘You eat a burrito with your HANDS.’

Damn right you do! Adria Arjona is always great and even in these snippets projects genuine love for her kid. Also, I want a burrito now.

0.32 – ‘That’s the second time that Blackhawk’s gone over us today.’

This is a tiny nitpick but that’s a Huey. It’s entirely possible that this is something that’s going to be fixed in post or maybe soldiers call every chopper a Blackhawk. Not a deal breaker.

0.33 – Rebecca Hall!

Persistently one of the best elements of any movie she’s in. In a kinder world, she’d have been the actual bad guy in Iron Man 3 as was originally planned.

0.40 – Michael Biehn!

Corporal Dwayne Hicks. Kyle Reese. This man is action royalty, and I’m thrilled to see him in something so high profile. Also, he’s almost certainly playing a spook. The hooded soldiers, the fact we see him walking into a room with a bunch of folks strung up in a manner directly reminiscent of the torture atrocities at Abu Grahib. This is all the way off the books work.

0.49 – ‘What you are witnessing here is the human equivalent of a heat-seeking missile.’

That MIGHT be Stevens. He’s certainly got form playing frightening Teutonic scientists (the excellent and overlooked Cuckoo for one).

0.54 – ‘The perfect soldier.’

The effect of the shined eyes is terrifying even before you get to the fact this is Alex Pereira walking very determinedly toward you to do Murders. Pereira is a kickboxing and MMA champion across two and possibly shortly three weight divisions. That last one will be contested at the first MMA event held on the White House lawn, because if we don’t live in Hell, you can commute there from here. Anyway! Onwards!

1.06 – ‘Would you mind telling me what I’m up against, tonight?’

Drew Starkey, who did excellent work in Love, Simon, The Hate U Give and the 2022 Hellraiser is in this as a worryingly eyebrow-free government cleaner. And by cleaner we mean he’s executing people as a cover up for the crimes of Pereira’s character and his associates.

1.08 – IS THAT A BATTLE TRUCK?!

Because that sure looks like a battle truck!

1.10 – Eyeshine confirmed

These guys are at least partially surgically enhanced judging by these lenses. Richard B Riddick would be impressed.

1.14 – Diner Massacre

This is not so much a callback to The Guest as a very specific statement of violent intent. There’s a pivotal moment in The Guest where a character basically annihilates a diner in an extremely efficient, and clearly slightly annoyed, way. The methodically frenzied physical destruction Pereira’s character (known only as The Butcher) and his friends perpetrate tells us they’re a very different kind of weapon.

1.17 – Black and White

From here in we get regular slow motion black and white inserts showing soldiers opening fire and what seems to be a fist fight between Arjona and Pereira’s characters in the past. Was she in line for this program? Did she ‘flunk’ out? Or is she it’s most successful graduate?

1.41 – This feels personal

Is that why they seem to be targeting her? Because this barbecue ambush feels aimed directly at Arjona’s character. Given the kick to the groin, we see her land at 1.49 in a flashback, not to mention the physical size of the guys watching the fight, this really does look like her old unit.

1.46 – Impact

This is such a simple shot, of a big guy in tactical gear leaping into shot, but the motion and the stillness and the framing make it enormously intimidating.

2.07 – Chainsaw

Yeah, this is going to be FUN. Also, the fact Arjona’s character is possibly shot earlier and may lose an eye here is doing nothing to beat the suspicion she’s boosted too.

2:12 – REGINALD VELJOHNSON!

Die Hard’s finest is back! SO cool to see him show up here!

Two other quick notes. Eric Wareheim is on the poster. Wareheim is alternate comedy royalty in the US and best known over here for a weirdly muted turn on Dropout’s Gamechanger a few years ago. He does good work but of a very specific tone and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does here.

And finally, a note from Dan Stevens himself, a man noticeably invisible and possibly inaudible in the trailer but very much in the movie. He posted this on his Instagram: ‘Wait, is this a sequel to The Guest…???’

I am SO excited. Onslaught releases, or is perhaps unleashed, September 4th.

The Guest is available to stream and on Bluray.