The Guest (2014)

Arguably the film that saw Wingard reveal his true talents, The Guest is a gloriously realised homage to the 1980s output from horror maestro John Carpenter. Starring an almost weirdly buff Dan Stevens (previously decidedly not buff as the star of Downton Abbey) as a war vet who decides to call in on the family of one of his troop buddies, the film treads an uneasy path between psychological thriller, comedic masterpiece and slasher horror as the guest’s concocted story starts to unravel. The ending is pure Carpenter but also uniquely Wingardian (that’s a thing now, right?) and the colour palette only endorses the links to the films Wingard honours whilst also marking The Guest out for special attention in its own right.