Tess (Georgina Campbell) travels to Detroit for a job interview. She arrives at her Airbnb rental, in a very sketchy neighbourhood, late at night only to find that the house has been mistakenly double-booked and Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there. With a convention in town there seems to be no hotels available, so she decides to stay the night. She is initially wary of Keith but is unaware that there is something much more sinister inside.
The basic premise sounds like a set up for a romcom. The first half plays out a little like that but I found the knowledge that something awful was about to happen extremely unsettling. The creeping atmosphere is built up superbly by director Zach Cregger, who also wrote the screenplay. Then, just when the horror is revealed, Cregger brilliantly pulls the rug from under the audience by jumping into what, at first, seems like an unrelated story featuring Justin Long as AJ, a TV director accused of rape by a woman from the show.
Eventually, the stories connect, but, delightfully, Cregger pulls the same trick again, taking us back to the 1980s to enable us to learn more about what is going on.
This is a marvellously inventive movie. There is just enough gore to satisfy those who are into that, but it is more notable for a stifling feeling of dread.
Rating: 8 out of 10