The Perfect Host (2010)

With that whole niche subgenre that has evolved from Dinner Party Thrillers having often been to my tastes - think Coherence, The Gift, The Invitation as modern iterations - I’d had this David Hyde Pierce vehicle recommended to me a bunch. This is definitely a more charismatic take with a home invasion set up - our dinner party guest is a career criminal taking refuge in Niles-From-Frasier’s house, but of course the night does not go as intended. 

It’s largely a piece that just lets the character interactions speak for themselves, which I really appreciated. It does become a little unhinged as it races to the finish line, and I could have done without the overreliance on flashbacks, which I didn’t feel clarified the story. You’ve also got to accept that it’s going to try to get twisty on you, and if you’ve watched enough of these kinds of movies, you’re not going to be surprised by anything that happens. The supporting cast do well and Hyde Pierce carries the whole thing with gusto - it's his movie and he seems to be having a blast with it. 

Dinner party pieces work because they take a familiar environment, a small scale and identifiable characters and then get to play within that space. They're good setups for psychological thrillers and horror and when people are willing to play with expectations, they can be fun twists on convention. I think this was a good example of a pretty conventional Dinner Party Thriller, where something like Coherence gets a lot more innovative within those constraints. Conventional doesn't equate to bad, but it also doesn't - in this case - equate to a movie that stayed with me or one I'll be necessarily going back to me. It would be a hardship! But I don't feel like I'd need to.

Rating: 6/10 - It’s a really fun movie! It’s not the most memorable I’ve seen, but I’m predisposed to the genre, so I really enjoyed it. I liked the gradual unraveling of the movie and watching Niles-From-Fraiser do his thing.