Remember like four years ago when I clued you beautiful cats n’ creeps in about writer/director Finn Callan’s sinister short Guest? Probably not, but click that highlighted text and you can catch right the hell up!
Now that all of that biz is out of the way, let’s dive in to Callan’s follow up, the appropriately titled Guest 2; a longer (but still “short” in the “it’s not quite feature length” sense) deeper dive into the wicked world established in the frightful first go-around!
Siblings Jill (Jennifer English) and Ethan (Simon Bigg) are tasked with setting up a support group confab, but E-Dawg has been shirking those responsibilities and sequestered himself in his room.
Fed up with such bullshittery, Jill runs the group solo-style and becomes acquainted with with Mia (Natasha Biggs), a woman dealing with severe loneliness and isolation. Unfortunately for Jill, Mia hasn’t been suffering as all alone as she thinks… and soon the preternatural presence, the eponymous Guest (Anna Fraser) becomes all-too present which could spell dreadful doom for them all!
Callan presents all of the above in a twisting narrative that tackles real-world bummers such as depression and suicide while giving it a supernatural sheen that keeps the piece emotional but palatable for those that are looking for thrills n’ chills.
Stylistically, the film is a marked dichotomy of the previous entry, which was mostly dialog free and set in a twilight world of cool tones and even colder dread, but this time the dialog takes center stage (with fantastic performances from Biggs, English, and Bigg bringing those wicked words to lascivious life), and while the world is often punctuated by chiaroscuro shadows and palpable despair, there is still enough diffused sunlight creeping in to offer a visual surrogate that perhaps the world just outside these character’s experiences may offer some sliver of solace and hope.
Terrifying for both the real-world and otherworldly demons plaguing our heroes, Guest 2 delivers a powerful fright flick experience that shouldn’t be missed (and you definitely won’t miss it if you click on the handy video below)!
