In an interview with Playboy, Gone Girl director David Fincher says his wife, Ceán Chaffin, was right when she told him he shouldn’t have made The Game, the 1997, Criterion-approved thriller starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. He elaborates saying:
Yeah, and in hindsight, my wife was right. We didn’t figure out the third act, and it was my fault, because I thought if you could just keep your foot on the throttle it would be liberating and funny. I know what I like, and one thing I definitely like is not knowing where a movie is going. These days, though, it’s hard to get audiences to give themselves over. They want to see the whole movie in a 90-second trailer.
Fincher nails it with that last sentence, audiences “want to see the whole movie in a 90-second trailer” and lo-and-behold here’s a trailer for the just released Adam Wingard film The Guest and it does just that.
The Guest centers on a soldier (Dan Stevens) who introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. After the young man is welcomed into their home, a series of accidental deaths seem to be connected to his presence. Want to know happens from there? Well, anyone with half a brain can put most of it together and spoil every wonderful beat in the following trailer and, even better, it’s over in only 85 seconds and not 90. Yay for cinema!
Might I suggest an alternative to watching the trailer? Just read my review and then go see the movie for yourself.
