With Halloween coming up, everyone is getting excited for some spooky, scary goodness. This is the time when people gather in groups to sit down for a great scary movie to watch.

Now, I love a horror movie as much as the next guy, but many people don’t find watching a film that scares the pants off them quite the good time they were expecting.

Worry not, my light-hearted guys and ghouls, because “The Guest” is an interesting yet thrilling Halloween adventure.

The movie opens up to a family that has been going through some tough times given that they lost a son in the war in Afghanistan. While the family is continuing to heal, a knock on their door brings an interesting stranger into their life. The man (Dan Stevens) informs the mother of the family that he is not only a soldier but one of her son’s closest friends in the military.

The man, who claims his name is David, continues to say that the family’s son told him that if he died, David was supposed to head back and look after his family. The mom immediately invites David to stay and meet the rest of the family.

At first David seems like the perfect gentleman, helping out with the laundry and homework but eventually things start to take a more dark and sinister turn as the kids slowly find out David is not who he seems.

What I really enjoy about this film is that they wrote all their characters, especially David’s, super well. You really want to believe his is a good guy looking after this family’s well-being, but every so often you see a glimpse into the terrible psyche of this ex-military guy. Anna the daughter (Maika Monroe), who is not fond of David from the beginning even falls for his ruse at some point.

Another observation is all the interesting shots that the director put in the movie. Accompanied with some great music that goes from super groovy to spine-tingling in a matter of seconds, the film is shot in a way that the director moves through the house to show the plight of the unassuming family while capturing the darker side of the stranger. There are scenes in the film that really pulled me in and then the music quickly punched in and caught me off guard.

An interesting thing to note about this movie is that not many people know about the flick, but it is super easy and cheap to find since it is on Netflix. So if you are of a rather squeamish sort and all your buddies are looking for a good scare from streaming a movie, you can suggest this interesting and new thriller.

“The Guest” is a thrilling film that brings together action and mystery with a Halloween feel. It expresses true evil in that a mourning family would open its arms to a person only to find out later that, no matter how charming and truthful a person appears, a stranger is still a stranger.