An Ideal Host

5/10

Stumbled across this and something compelled me to watch it. Dont know why Not bad for such a low budget affair but you wont want to take your Mum.

After the credits roll, there is not much about this film that will make you want to talk about it, or remember it.

Credit due for its boldness.

A hard film to love or hate really, but tbh i was happy when it ended.

It wont be a film that will live in the hearts or souls of anyone, or make any kind of dent in the history of cinema for that matter.

I applaud the filmakers for making something out of what seems to be nothing. Gotta give credit for that.

I started watching this based on its high reviews. Then I came to the reviews in the middle of watching it and noticed how the reviews were mostly thumbs down. I see why and that's why it's important to have the thumb down feature. I'm a big fan of comedy and craziness, but this movie is no good. Maybe it's because I'm not Australian but I don't find any of this movie funny or entertaining in any way. The acting is not good and everything is forced. It's like some kind of improv theater group. And as the audience, I don't care about any of the people and I don't care that the party is not going as planned. The music is pretty decent, though.

This is a legitimately fun little low budget Australian indie horror comedy. The microbudget is used well and while some of the effects show the limitations of what they were working with, that's really about all that does.

The opening, while very much comedic, set such a good stage about something being decidedly wrong about the main couple, Liz and Jackson, and their relationship beyond their obvious superficiality that I expected the nature of the horror reveal to be something entirely different than what it ended up being, even if it was honestly fairly telegraphed in retrospect. The script is smarter than I'd expected as well, and the cast does really well with the material. No intended shade to the Australian horror comedy tradition, but most of the ones I've seen previously seemed to be trying too hard to be early Peter Jackson to bother actually being well made, interesting, or even attempt anything of their own, so I'd not had the highest hopes for this movie to be different. Happily, that was not the case here at all.

Take a chance on this one if you like quirky little character-driven indie comedies alongside your dose of over the top splatter. The latter reminded me a bit more of a slightly more grounded Evil Dead approach than early Jackson or really even later Raimi - gory and at not intended to always be entirely realistic, but not necessarily fully goofy and goopy.

Liz and Jackson are planning the perfect party for a select group of friends, to allow them to break the news of their up and coming wedding. However there's an unwanted guest on the way from their past, who has decided to make an appearance, and who may well derail the whole thing, in a most unexpected manner. This is a great black comedy, with a sharp script that neatly uses the confines of the dinner party to tease out the past secrets and hidden resentments from the guests. With the wine flowing the carefully planned evening slow decent into bitter backbiting escalates in unexpected ways and an unexpected anarchic element to the film that just makes it so much fun. Full credit goes to the entire cast who create such a wonderful chemistry between them all, but especially credit to Nadia Collins as Liz who has to witness her carefully laid plans slowly unfold, but not let things get the better of her.

This movie was FUN, from start to finish, in a variety of ways. I dont know about you, but thats the main reason that I watch a film. It started off like it was going to be a quirky rom-com(I knew it was a horror movie going in), and genuinely made me laugh out loud several times. The quirky "everything that can go wrong" style of humor seemed like it was going to go down one horror path and then completely took me by surprise by the direction it actually went. It maintained the humor through the second act while spinning a mystery, setting up the stakes, and dipping a toe firmly into a certain style or horror, while remaining light and fun. The final act then got BRUTAL. I was not ready for it given the light tone it had taken to that point, but I loved it. It went for it in a way that many bigger budget films should study and take notes on. The more blind you can go into this, the better off you will be.