David Hyde Pierce as a psychopath. I was sold based on that premise alone. I’m a fan of David from “Frasier” and a chance to see him portray a different kind of character really intrigued me.
In “The Perfect Host”, John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) just robbed a bank and is looking for a place to lay low for a while. That’s when he meets Warwick (Hyde Pierce), a seemingly sophisticated gentleman with a secret. Pretending to be a friend of a friend, the robber cons his way into Warwick’s house. Once Warwick realizes who John is and what he’s done, things turn ugly. John becomes vicious and takes Warwick as his hostage. The one thing that John was not counting on, however, was that Warwick is a derange psychopath. Once Warwick turns the tables on his captor, that’s when the fun begins.
The main attraction here is David Hyde Pierce. He played the role wonderfully. He was charming, funny, and dangerous all at once. Really a tour de force performance. I’m a fan of horror movies, yet I’m not typically that guy who’s cheering for the killers. But in this movie, I was rooting for Pierce from the start! I wanted to see him kill, get away with it, and kill some more. He really is an appealing psycho.
Aside from Pierce’s excellent showing, this fresh and original concept really fell short of the mark for me. My biggest problem with it was the third act. Not just the ending, but the entire third act. Up until that point the film was great. Then it takes this left turn and becomes this totally different film. Unfortunately, this different film felt a little flat. Another problem was they kept trying to get us to sympathize with John… and I just refused to. He just wasn’t a likable character. And compared to Warwick, forget about it. They kept showing flashbacks of John before the robbery and, truthfully, I didn’t care. This is David Hyde Pierce’s movie and I wanted to know more about our perfect host. Instead we get this whole subplot that really just bored me.
In closing, I’m recommending it so you can see Hyde Pierce’s performance. Besides that, there really isn’t anything else that I consider a draw. So if you’re not a fan of his or don’t want to see him as this type of character, I would steer clear.
-Daniel Richardson