Screenwriter Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard have been bringing genre thrills to the Sundance Film Festival for years now with V/H/S and V/H/S/2, but this year they’ve brought what may be their best film yet, The Guest, starring “Downtown Abbey’s” Dan Stevens as a veteran who returns home to take care of a fallen comrade’s family, but whose methods of protection quickly turn horrifying. And, somehow, very funny.
We got Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard on a comfy couch to talk about The Guest, their evolving experiences at Sundance, how they can keep The Guest‘s many surprises a secret while still marketing their movie to potential audiences, what they learned from marketing their last horror-thriller You’re Next, why they cast a “Downton Abbey” star as a Terminator-esque supervillain, why they have problems with the similar movie Stoker, how the script evolved from an earlier drama Simon Barrett was writing, and whether or not they’re bringing a new film to Sundance next year.
