The Big Picture
- John Wick is a legendary hitman who is unstoppable and kills viciously, making the series sit on the edge of the horror genre.
- In the movie The Guest, the mysterious stranger David quickly switches from pleasant to intimidating, leaving the audience wondering about his true nature.
- Major Carver in The Guest is a militarized character who is determined to stop David, reminiscent of Dr. Loomis from Halloween, adding to the horror elements.
“Baba Yaga,” is an ominous nickname given to a legendary hitman, although he’s in no way an actual manifestation of the Russian boogeyman. In fact, from what’s learned in John Wick, Keanu Reeves' ex-assassin is who you hired, "to kill the fucking boogeyman," and Wick lives up to the title through the bodies left behind. Despite the eventual cleanup, everyone thinks they can take him on — they learn the hard way they cannot, dying in efficient ways. Everything can be a weapon for John Wick in knife fights and gun-fu, or even commanding a horse to kick back into an opponent’s face. Yes, it’s an action series, but it does sit on the edge of the horror genre in how unstoppable Wick is and how viciously he kills, which makes The Guest the ideal horror spin for John Wick fans.
‘The Guest’ Welcomes a Mysterious Stranger
In a Mid-western town, the Halloween season is in full swing across the sprawling landscape and the wind brings in something else other than autumn leaves. David (Dan Stevens), an ex-soldier, visits the Petersons, the family of a fellow soldier David served with who died in combat. The Petersons grieving in different ways, ultimately invite this surprise guest with open arms. Or almost open arms; teen Luke (Brendan Meyer) isn’t too concerned about David, he’s more concerned about the ongoing bullying he faces at school; older sister Anna (Maika Monroe) is more aware of David’s presence, distrustful of him due to a closed off demeanor. Nevertheless, the Peterson family all eventually fall for David’s disarming charisma, yet there are clues these good vibes won’t last. David’s fondness for a violent streak is barely scratching the surface of what he’s capable of.
For the 2014 debut, Wick's slim backstory of losing his wife and then losing the puppy she gifted him is quickly introduced to set the story in motion and more importantly, eliminate what was keeping his killer instincts dormant. They return with a craving for vengeance, powering the movie into brutal fight sequences that dare (and succeed) to be taken as high art. The following sequels add to the world-building, a departure from how the 2014 movie carefully avoids too much exposition and character development. In the storytelling arsenal, how other characters refer to the “Baba Yaga” legend surrounding John Wick, builds up his expertise in execution. This is not someone you should mess with, and yes, Iosef (Alfie Allen) ignores all these warnings from his father. Crime boss Viggo (Mikael Nyqvist) cannot express it more clearly to his son, “I once saw him kill three men in a bar...with a pencil. With a fucking pencil.” When it’s too late, Iosef understands the monster he’s unleashed from impulsive, materialistic actions.
In director Adam Wingard’s The Guest, there is no legend attached to David to grow suspicious of, instead, the movie shows how quickly he can switch from pleasant to intimidating. “I’m right as rain now,” he says to dispel any worries. Once he graciously, if not hesitantly, accepts the Peterson's offer to stay in their son’s old room, he sits down on the bed. David’s body goes rigid, with a blank face without any kind of readable emotion. Just who, or what, did the Petersons invite inside their home? They don’t see how David power down, a sight that would be concerning, and this is what builds the suspense. Eventually, David unleashes destruction on a wide scale, and unlike John Wick whose precision is so damn good, he knows he won’t hit innocent bystanders, David purposely leaves behind collateral damage.
Keanu Reeves & Dan Stevens Are Both Killing Machines
The action choreography of John Wick is exquisite in using long takes to capture the real physicality of the actors and stunt performers. Long takes aren’t in The Guest, and that comes down to the fact David never meets his match in combat. Those he confronts or takes down, aren’t prepared for his skills. To seamlessly infiltrate the Petersons, David starts with the parents, before moving on to Luke. The teen has a bully problem, which David knows how to handle, involving breaking bones and smashing in faces, all the while composed and calculating. There’s a moment when David attempts to kill off two victims, but he misses on the second due to the revolver in his grasp only having one bullet, so he slips in exactly one bullet to finish the job. While John Wick goes on an odyssey to regain some semblance of his humanity and the new life he gained with his late wife, David offers a scarier thought. The audience is left to wonder how aware David is of the double facet of himself when the politeness ends and the savagery begins.
Laser and strobe lights shine across the various club spaces John Wick infiltrates to find a target. During the invasion of the Russian spa in the 2014 movie, the sequence can bewitch audiences as red flashes out into the blue. It’s a true fire and ice show, revealing the ex-hitman’s passionate rage and cold efficiency to the kills. John Wick has his sights on Iosef, but he doesn’t shoot his target. Instead, he returns the gun to the head of a henchman to cut off that loose end. Throughout this scene, before it spills into the club, “Think” by Kaleida plays, a hypnotic song choice.
To celebrate the Halloween season, The Guest goes for key scenes drenched in neon, holiday shades of purple, green, and orange. Inside the local high school, a haunted maze is set up to lead into the gymnasium where a dance will be held, and the movie finds it a perfect place to set its finale. Within the attraction, a hall of mirrors isn’t exactly a fun time when characters are trying to outrun a lethal killer. This funhouse aesthetic resembles the glass museum exhibition during the John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) finale, where it plays around with the perspectives of Wick and the incoming henchmen. Back in The Guest, out on the dance floor, David corners his prey. A light display flashes while a fog machine lets out, as the electro-pop “Antonio (Berlin Breakdown Version)” by Annie echoes around the space. By this point, small answers on who and what David is (no spoilers), have come. In doing so, it opens the world and welcomes in a new character, revealing The Guest to be a hybrid of two movie classics.
Lance Reddick Commands the Screen (as Usual)
John Wick alum, the late Lance Reddick, enters the story as Major Carver, who sure isn’t like Charon, the concierge to The Continental Hotel, always with a greeting to new and returning faces. Carver is a militarized take on Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), the slightly unhinged psychiatrist from Halloween (1978), on the hunt to stop his ex-patient, Michael Myers. Once Carver learns of David’s whereabouts, he leads a team to stop David for good. The Guest never tries to place Major Carver on either side of the morality scale, and Reddick performs it as such. Although there are political motivations in seeing David get stopped, Carver is just as concerned for the well-being of the Peterson family. Dr. Loomis will go rambling on about the threats from Halloween night’s ancient roots and wear a trench coat with flaps that go flying when he charges after the Haddonfield boogeyman.
In contrast to this, Major Carver speaks bluntly, in a matter-of-fact tone, and fitting Reddick’s tall frame is a leather trench coat, making the character all the more striking. Carver isn’t the only nod to Halloween or the Halloween franchise, there is a visual nod to the iconic masks of Season of the Witch (1982). And while David could be a more human version of Michael Myers, David could also be a human version of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg from The Terminator (1984). He may not be sent into the past by Skynet, but the Peterson family is still, nevertheless, in danger.
The Boogeyman in ‘John Wick’ and ‘The Guest’
John Wick is fighting to regain his humanity, he may even spare certain lives in fights where he feels he met his match, but David doesn’t think like that, and because of this, he faces no such dilemma. “Baba Yaga” isn’t a code name for David, in The Guest, he is an unstoppable, mythic monster. At least with John Wick, his killer instincts are focused on fellow assassins who storm their way up to him. For David, he will charm you with his coolness, and maybe, if he feels like it, offer a polite, “sorry,” as he sends a fatal blow to a victim.