9 Unfairly Underrated Movie Villains From The 21st Century

The Guest, Adam Wingard's delightfully bonkers 2014 thriller, inexplicably failed to attract a wide audience upon release, despite being wickedly smart, tautly paced, and deliriously entertaining from beginning to end.

Much of this gusto can be attributed to Wingard's direction, as well as to Simon Barrett's astonishingly compact screenplay. However, the real MVP is undeniably Dan Stevens, who plays the titular visitor (David Collins) with such roguish appeal that you end up wanting him to prevail, even after you discover his lethal intentions.

Initially admired by everyone that he comes into contact with, David is a remarkably charming presence, supremely polite, overly courteous, and also dangerously unhinged. The fact that this mishmash of characteristics works is entirely down to Stevens, who pulls off the tricky duality with aplomb.

It's a role that doesn't require the actor to undergo a gradual arc, so much as it asks him to perform a sharp diametric shift every 5 minutes. Indeed, he is repeatedly asked to go from ''ultimate nice guy'' to ''remorseless killer'', seemingly at random intervals.

In lesser hands, this kind of inconsistently could come across as confusing or perhaps even irritating, but Stevens navigates the territory with sure footed confidence. Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's watched his similarly mesmerising turn in Legion. Evidently the man has a talent for portraying erratic behaviour. Maybe he'd be a good Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde one day.