An Ideal Host

I was in the mood for a dinner party thriller. Think The Invitation or The Perfect Host. So I went to An Ideal Host, which has been on my Tubi watchlist for a while. It's not what I expected. This was in the horror genre so I figured I picked exactly what I was looking for. The first half I was 100% right.

It takes place in an Australian country house. A couple invites several friends over to see their new house/farm and to surprisingly announce their engagement. The friends are a mix of people that they knew mostly from high school. One estranged friend crashes the party and increases the drama and tension. It's a fun insight to an OCD female lead, Liz, and her pleasant enough, but also red flag inducing less than helpful, fiancé. 

Liz is really the focus of the movie and Nadia Collins is perfect in this role. I actually don't understand how she hasn't had more work. She's annoying at the start and you love her by the end. Think Ripley in Alien. 

The party crasher, Daisy, seems to be self-centered and narcissistic, but as the story moves on there more to her than meets the eye. The other highlight of the film is the spur of the moment plus 1, Jon. He's someone that everyone, hilariously even his date, are learning about as the story progresses.

There's the set up. Stop now for entering spoiler territory.

The movie now turns into The World's End/Evil Dead. And it works!

There's an alien invasion going on. With weird liquidy spider/octopus-like things infesting and taking over their trapped inside human hosts. Great job on the title guys. Their goal is to take over this remote town and see if it will be easy enough so then they can expand to WORLD DOMINATION!

Unfortunately for them, Liz stand in their way. The slow corruption of the guests leads to a dwindling group to fight back against the aliens, but honestly, we don't need them. Liz is a bad @$$ Ash in disguise and takes these guys down. The level of gore was surprising to me as I was expecting a different kind of movie and the first half had no hints that it was going to be that kind of movie. The gore was well done and effective, just shocking in how quickly it went that way and how realistic it was in many ways. 

Poor Jon, who was my favorite personality of the movie until Liz really comes into her own by the end, has the worst and most torturous death. It's sad and a bit gross. Liz is a fighter and does what she needs to do to not only survive, but ultimately become a hero for the world.

If you like slow tension movies with some realistic characters, that will take a From Dusk To Dawn sudden genre shift into something new and different give yourself a treat and watch this one!

9/10 - I'm not saying this is better than Send Help, it's not, but I always boost little independent film ratings because they need the support and exposure as much as they can.