The Perfect Host

[Laurence Jabali]

Alrightguys, for starters this movie is listed as a "physiological thriller". I don't know what whatever genius decided that was smoking, but this movie, if anything is a dark horror comedy. That might just be me though, but take my word over theirs since I'm always right (...right?). I found humor in just about the entire film, and did I mention it stars David Hyde Pierce as Warwick Wilson? I just thought of Frasier the entire time and laughed because it made everything he did that much more ridiculous. Niles really lost his shit...and did his own make up (if you end up seeing this you'll get the joke).

The movies pretty straight forward, so I'll give you the gist without spoiling too much since this is one of those "have to see for yourself" (and well worth it) kind of flicks. Basically, a career criminal named John Taylor has just robbed a bank for $300,000 bones. Looking for a place to hide (and now having an injured foot), he tries to sweet talk his way into a ladies house telling her he's a fellow Jehovah's witness. She basically calls him out on being a liar and sends him on his merry way. Eventually John finds his way over to the neighbors house after rummaging through their mail to find a post card sent from Australia from a girl named "Julia". He sees this as an opportunity to lay-low and goes to Warwick's door posing as a mutual friend.

Warwick answers the door mid prep for a fancy dinner party he's hosting that's about to go under way. Not being able to turn down a friend in need of Julia's he lets John in. They start shooting the shit about Julia and their adventures in Australia and Warwick offers John a glass of wine. This is when the fun begins.

Warwick decides to turn on the radio as he continues to prepare for the party. Realizing that the station is broadcasting details about the bank heist, John's true colors finally show and he makes an attempt to take Warwick hostage. Unfortunately Warwick has other plans for John, who soon realizes he's been drugged and blacks out. He eventually wakes up drowsy and incoherent tied to a chair at the head of the dinner table where Warwick and his "guests" are enjoying some roast duck. Unfortunately (again) for John, these aren't your average run of the mill dinner guests. From here is when the movie gets pretty crazy and did I mention hilarious. Turns out Warwick is a complete psychopath. Who knew? The rest of the movie is chock full of awesomeness and one amazing dance number.

To sum it up, this movie rules and everyone should see it. It started out as a 26 minute short film and I'm really glad it finally became a feature length. David Hyde Pierce really steals the show as Warwick Wilson and I couldn't think of anyone better suited to play the part. You could say he really is the perfect host. Definitely check this film out, from one horror fan to another.

An extreme example:

If you host Korean guests politely advise that there is no drain in the bathroom floor.

They wash before they enter a bathtub/shower.

Helps to prevent flooding and a negative review.

Many good items are already noted here. I would add that when we host guests whom we know are from a different culture (lots of international guests here) we do some minimal research to both avoid alienating them and potentially delight them with our consideration. Best of all, these measures are usually at no cost.

Wine And Dine: There's more than meets the eye to Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce), who only seems like he's throwing a large dinner party. Whatever fun there is to be had in this overstuffed film comes from Pierce's outrageous hallucinations. Magnolia Pictures hide caption

Unpredictability is normally a virtue in the movies, especially for filmmakers who want to create the anything-can-happen dread and consequent shocks of the thriller. Adapting his own award-winning 2001 short film into his first feature, writer-director Nick Tomnay takes a more-is-more approach to the surprises of The Perfect Host. Around every corner is a new twist, a strategically placed misdirection or another switch of predator and prey. But while the gamesmanship is satisfying in moderation, it becomes a little monotonous in excess.

That host, Warwick, is played by David Hyde Pierce, and the character isn't a very far cry from Pierce's better-known fussy, effete creation, Frasier's Niles Crane. Except that Warwick sees people who aren't there and has violently psychopathic tendencies. He quickly takes control of the situation from the hapless John, who ends up tied to a chair and drugged, witness to a pantomimed dinner party with guests that exist only in Warwick's head.

Seasoned criminal John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) holds up a bank and plots his escape meticulously, which makes it all the more improbable that he would allow himself to be rendered powerless by David Hyde Pierce. Magnolia Pictures hide caption

For the reversal of fortune to really work, Tomnay needs to create real sympathy for John, who starts the movie not just as a small-time crook but also as a pretty cruel character. He gradually reveals a sympathetic back story in flashbacks, but he's mostly pitiable for a naivete that doesn't really feel in character for a career criminal, even one trying to get back on the straight and narrow.

That back story becomes important for reasons aside from making us feel for John, as it ends up central to the unexpected course of the movie's last half-hour. Tomnay takes a sharp turn away from the film's Misery-inspired tortured guest setup toward a complex, double-cross-laden Usual Suspects police procedural. Unfortunately, it becomes clear at this point that there really isn't enough material here for anything more involved than a short film. Expanded to feature length, the film piles on the twists seemingly because it has time to fill, padding the running time with tiresome cat-and-mouse games. Eventually, The Perfect Host ends up more like the guest who stays long past the time when he should have said goodnight.

I had a great response to my first segment of The Perfect Host, How To Avoid Awkward Silence, so I thought I would keep things rolling. This time around I am sharing my favorite party prep cleaning supplies. These are the items I use to clean my house before hosting an event, big or small. There may and probably are better supplies out there, but this is what I have found works fabulous for me.

You can take the boy out of the South, but you can never take the Southern Gothic out of the filmmaker, as Arkansas to New Zealand transplant Derrick Sims proves with his new creeping horror The Perfect Host: A Southern Gothic Tale.

Before tonight's world premiere at Flix Brewhouse, courtesy of the Other Worlds Austin year-round orbiter program, Sims took a break from his long flight to Texas to talk about his film, the Southern Gothic tales that influenced his script, and the Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas that both inspired it, and served as the main shooting location.

Austin Chronicle: Every time I talk to a filmmaker telling a haunted house story - whether the ghosts are real or not - the house itself is incredibly important. Ti West said that he wouldn't have even tried to shoot The Innkeepers if he couldn't have used the Yankee Peddler. When did you find your Allen House, and what was it that you were looking for specifically in that location?

AC: How did you end up making the film in both Arkansas and New Zealand?DS: In 2016, Alaina and I had decided to move to New Zealand. During production, Massey University in Palmerston North offered me an artist residency, putting me up in a flat on the city square and paying me to do the post work for three months. It was perfect. The support I got from them was tremendous, and that residency led to me getting my current job as a film production lecturer at UCOL. So yeah, all post work took place there. Then I realized I needed a few second unit shots, and there was no way I was going back to the US to shoot them.

The good thing about teaching production is you have access to a lot of gear, so I took it out, shot a few sequences, and married them into the film. I don't reckon anyone will be able to tell what's New Zealand and what's not!

The perfect host, I suddenly realize as of talking with lifestyle expert Bruce Littlefield, is perfectly okay with not being perfect. The guests will have fun to the extent you kick back and do the same, and roll with whatever goes wrong.

Bruce says the first thing his guests see when they show up is a bar. If they want to mix a drink, they help themselves. If their favorite thirst quencher is Dr. Pepper, they'll find plenty on hand. "People naturally congregate around a bar," Bruce says. The ice has been broken.

Bruce is throwing a clambake next month. One reason? He can roast the corn and make other preparations well before the party. The less time you have to spend in the kitchen, the more time you'll have to enjoy yourself and the people you love.

"If you invite fun people," Bruce says, "you'll have fun. The right group can make a wonderful memory just sprawled out on blankets on the lawn." Which reminds me of the talk show -- and life itself. Surround yourself with the right people and everything gets easier.

But the most important person on the guest list, Bruce says, is you. He doesn't mean that in an egotistical way. To the contrary. What the host feels is what the guests will feel. If you aren't having a good time no one else will, either. Don't clean up as you go along. Enjoy the festivities. If you're stressed about the red wine that just got spilled on a white carpet, more wine will be needed to compensate.

Turn the lights down. Bruce says a common mistake is having too many lights on. "Think of a nice restaurant," he says. "The lighting is low. Everyone looks better in candlelight. If you put thirty votives in a shack that shack is going to be the most fabulous shack ever. If you break out the Christmas lights for a summer party and string them over your porch, it'll signal to your guests they're about to have fun."

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