The Perfect Host

Fugitive John Taylor flees an initially unspecified crime, with a wounded foot. (Flashbacks and news reports reveal he robbed a bank, in collusion with a teller.) He stops in a convenience store for some disinfectant, just moments before it is robbed; he turns the tables on the robber, but she gets away with his wallet. The store's TV identifies John and his car, so he quickly abandons it, proceeding on foot into an expensive neighborhood. Claiming to have been mugged, he gains entry to the house of Warrick Wilson, who is preparing a dinner party. John makes small talk and drinks red wine while trying to figure out his next move, and how to keep his lies from being found out. When the radio makes an announcement about the robbery, he angrily shushes Warrick and reveals himself. After forcing him to call his guests to cancel the party, John states that he intends to kill Warrick, but that he might spare him if he accommodates John until morning. Suddenly, John keels over; the wine has been drugged, and Warrick is not the person he seems.

When John comes to, he is tied to a chair, and the party is in swing—but all the other guests are figments of Warrick's imagination. Warrick takes a Polaroid picture of John and reveals a scrapbook of his past dinner parties, featuring similarly captive guests arranged in a timeline of increasing distress and injury which culminates in death. Unknown to John, Warrick's hallucinatory guests are cleaned-up, respectible versions of the people from the album. As the night wears on, John is further terrorized, drugged and incapacitated, and learns various things about Warrick's strange lifestyle.

John and Warrick play chess, with the prize being John's freedom; John, who is an excellent player, wins. Warrick lets John go as agreed but taunts him before he can leave, calling him worthless. John takes one of the swords on display in Warrick's living room and stabs him with it, but it proves to be a collapsible prop weapon. John is knocked out and regains consciousness in Warrick's bathtub, where Warrick runs a blade across John's throat.

John's body is left outside with the trash. He awakens and discovers that most of his injuries are fake; Warrick is a master of movie makeup. Detective Morton, who has been investigating the robbery, arrives at Warrick's door—Warrick is a police lieutenant supervising the case. Meanwhile, John becomes suspicious of Simone, the bank teller he conspired with, and discovers she made alternate travel arrangements out of Los Angeles that don't include him. John confronts Simone in a parking garage over her betrayal and faking illness which motivated him to rob the bank to pay for her medical treatment. He takes her car and the money, leaving her to be captured by the detectives. However, Warrick stops John from leaving and takes the money at gunpoint, leaving him with a couple thousand dollars to flee into Mexico.

A couple of months later, Detective Morton receives mail from Mexico (implied to be from John) containing a dinner party Polaroid of Warrick and John together. Morton confronts Warrick, who dismisses it as a fake, but when Morton persists, Warrick invites Morton to a dinner party.

• David Hyde Pierce as Warrick Wilson
• Clayne Crawford as John Taylor
• Helen Reddy as Cathy Knight, Warrick's neighbor
• Megahn Perry as Simone Demarchi, John's girlfriend
• Joseph Will as Detective Valdez
• Nathaniel Parker as Detective Morton

The film premiered in January 2010 at the Sundance Film Festival. The Perfect Host played at several other film festivals, including Fantasia 2010 and Sitges 2010. It won the audience award at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival 2011, a Saturn award and best feature at the Abertoir Film Festival 2011: Wales' national horror film festival. The film was released theatrically in the United States on July 1, 2011 in a limited release.[3]

The Perfect Host has received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 45% based on reviews from 33 critics.[4]

The film tied with Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 for the 2011 Saturn Award for Best DVD or Blu-ray Release.[5]

• Distributor's official website
• Producers' official website
• The Perfect Host at IMDb 
• The Perfect Host at AllMovie
• The Perfect Host at Box Office Mojo
• The Perfect Host at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Perfect Host at Metacritic
• Sundance Review