The Guest Room (also known simply as The Room), is an Italian horror film directed by, and with a story written by Stefano Lodovichi. From the captivating and mysterious opening I was desperate to find out where the story would go to next. Where it eventually ended up was somewhere I did not expect in the slightest.
Stella (Camilla Filippi - Deep in the Wood) is on the verge of suicide early one morning when she is interrupted by an unexpected knock at the door of her home. Answering it she encounters a stranger (Guido Caprino), a man who insists he has made a reservation and requesting she let him in from the storm raging outside. With her house no longer being a guest house she figures there must have been some mistake, yet at the mention of her husband, Sandro (Edoardo Pesce) having arranged it her guard is dropped and she allows him in. Stella becomes increasingly wary of the stranger's bizarre and controlling behaviour, and things come to a head when Sandro appears. Her husband has no idea who the man is either, but before anything else can happen, the stranger knocks them both out. They awaken tied to chairs, with the man claiming that the reason he is there is to punish Sandro for sins he has committed.
From the opening shot of a visibly distressed Stella wearing her wedding outfit, staring out of a wide open window as rain pours down on her face I was hooked. This was a film which really benefited from me having no idea how it would play out. There are a handful of characters but it is the main three who get almost the entirety of the screen time. Over the course of the movie secrets are slowly fed out, revealing why Stella was ready to kill herself, what evils her separated husband had done, and just who the stranger is. None of those reveals was underwhelming, it felt like a jigsaw puzzle slowly being constructed, so that by the end a clear picture linking all elements of the film could be seen. It becomes unclear at times just what is occuring, you have Stella thinking that maybe her suicide attempt had been successful and that she was in the afterlife, there is an apparent child of Stella and Sandro yet who is never shown, remaining possibly hidden behind a locked door, and the strange man's unbelievable story. It was all fed to the viewer in such an enthralling way.
Huge kudos goes to the setting, the huge isolated house is almost a mansion, a place in a state of disrepair, as can be seen with the dirt and grime on Stella's bare feet as a result of walking around it. This place, and the storm raging around it, was a fantastic location, full of great set design, and atmosphere. The quality of the filmmaking was also very strong. The film looked amazing, such crisp and clean shots, giving a lived-in, muted vibe. There was perhaps less violence than I expected, but there is still quite a bit. The blood looked effective, and make-up effects such as scars looked realistic. The few proper special effects were also believable.
The main thing for me was how all of this combined into one perfect whole. The three characters were perfectly cast, Filippi made for a very captivating protagonist, while the way that Caprino's character slowly morphed from controlling and composed to a near raging maniac over the course of the film was such a fun transition to see happen. I was concerned that this may fall apart by the time the end credits roll, but no, this led into a finale that felt like the story had came full circle, with no real complaints to be had from me.
The Guest Room kept me guessing all the way through, with twists and turns that I didn't expect and which simply worked. On paper the twists would sound too far fetched for such a serious film to pull off, yet it somehow did the impossible and achieved what it aimed for. The Guest Room released on October 25th, and is well worth checking out.
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