Horror Short Review: Unwelcome Guest (2022)

Dark Matters presents Unwelcome Guest. A home invasion horror short directed by John Sabatine and starring Wendy Wygant, Keri Jenzer and Corey Cannon.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an estimated 3.7 million burglaries occur in the U.S. every year.

Roughly 1 in 4 happen while someone is at home.

1 in 13 become violent.

Wygant plays Sheila Evans, an award-winning author who has gone to a remote cabin in the snowy and cold wilderness to focus on her current book. She’s suffering from writer’s block and hopes the isolation will help clear it.

Writer’s block is going to be the least of her problems soon enough though as her peace and quiet is disturbed by the arrival of an unwelcome guest. A serial killer dubbed the ‘Springboro Slasher’ (Jenzer) breaks in and forces Sheila to fight for her life.

Home invasion horror mostly go one of two ways. They can be harrowing and tense tales of survival based in reality or they can be cartoonish and uneventful excuses to showcase brutality. Rarely do you get something that sits in the middle but Unwelcome Guest does. Delivering a harsh dose of realism with savage intensity. The location and sense of isolation, the simple but defined main character, the cold and calculating villain. It all works here and captures the imagination to such an extent, its 13-minute runtime feels like half of that.

More uncomfortable and tense than creepy or scary, Unwelcome Guest will have you cheering for the lead’s survival and the villain’s comeuppance.

Check it out yourself below.