The Guest

Severely indebted Min Cheol (Lee Joo-seung) and Young Gyu (Han Min) manage a remote, dingy motel for violent loan shark Deuk-chan (Hyun Bong-sik), while reluctantly making hidden-camera videos of its guests’ private activities for him to sell on. 

Cleverly blending and thoroughly updating elements from other hotel horrors – chiefly Psycho (a distant mother, showers, voyeurism) and The Shining (an axe-wielding madman) – writer/director Yeon Je-gwang’s tense, taut thriller and of horror viewership, in a cynical, metacinematic peek at unspeakable exploitation. 

This is lean, mean genre filmmaking, with a difficult contemporary subtext.

Anton Bitel 

Contains disturbing scenes and violence