Mother of three Laura Peterson (Sheila Kelley) is still grieving over the loss of her son Caleb, who died while fighting in Afghanistan. So when David tells Laura that he served with Caleb and wanted to drop by to pay his respects, it’s easy to see why she’d be so keen to invite him to stay over for a couple of days. Laura’s boozy husband Spencer (Leland Orser), 20-year-old daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) and teenage son Luke (Brendan Meyer) are less easily swayed, but as David beguiles each of them in turn, he soon becomes another member of the family. The Guest constantly throws in references to other films of the 70s and 80s, from Enter The Dragon to Halloween III, and riffs on some of the plot points and set-ups of Hitchcock’s classic Shadow Of A Doubt. The result is a bit like Park Chan-Wook’s English-language debut Stoker, albeit shot through an ironic, hip and post-modern filter of electronic music, mobile phones and abrupt jabs of violence. The suspense in The Guest comes not from the question as to whether or not David is evil or not, but what kind of evil he might represent. There’s a nicely staged, early moment where David confronts some school bullies in a local bar, and his nice-guy mask starts to slip. Just how crazy is David, really? A Shadow Of A Doubt-style thriller requires at least one character who’s insightful enough to spot the evil in the family’s midst, and in The Guest, it’s Maika Monroe’s sarcastic, impatient Anna. Again, Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett (who last collaborated on the entertainingly black horror You’re Next) seem to enjoy playing within the conventions of the thriller genre, and presenting us with situations we’ve seen before, but in a slightly askew and uneasy fashion. Your mileage may vary with The Guest’s second half, which starts to answer more questions about David’s past which we won’t spoil here. For this writer, the revelations diminished, rather than added, to the tension built up in the first 40-or-so minutes. Identities and agendas aren’t the most interesting thing in The Guest in any case; instead, the film’s at its best when David’s simply wandering around the Peterson’s small, buttoned-down rural town and quietly (or sometimes violently) manipulating the local populace. There may also be something in here about our tendency to be swayed by surface appearance. David passes himself off as the perfect American: a brave war veteran who could also model for Abercrombie & Fitch. Even as the layers of his mania are peeled away, we can’t help admiring him just a little, and therein lies the thrill in this endearingly retro genre film. The Guest is out on DVD & Blu-ray on the 29th December. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.