Guess Who review.
Tubi original Guess Who fuses an interesting horror concept with some good old fashioned family drama to some interesting results.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Guess Who
Directed by Amelia Moses
Written by Ian Carpenter, Aaron Martin and Matt Wells
Starring Keeya King, Corteon Moore, Elizabeth Saunders, Andre Anthony, Amanda Ip, Vanessa Jackson and Gabriel Darku
Guess Who Review
It’s been a while since we checked in on Tubi. Unless you count the excellent Where the Devil Roams which we covered as a Video on Demand release and is now streaming on the service. Whatever you think of Tubi originals like the Terror Train remake and its quicky sequel…it is a great place to fire up some fresh, free horror movies. Yes, you have to endure a few commercial breaks. Yes, a lot of the movies are passable at best. Every so often, however, Tubi throws out an absolute gem (see: Where the Devil Roams). The first Tubi original horror movie of 2024 has arrived in the form of Guess Who. Is it more Terror Train or Devil Roams?
…
I’m going to spare you the wait. It’s more Terror Train.
That might be a little unfair to Guess Who. It’s closer to Black Mold than it is to the guilty pleasure remake. Black Mold is a good movie. Guess Who almost is too. It has some good ideas and does its best to tie them together. In fact, it’s hard to put into words exactly what Guess Who is missing to reach the next level. But we’ll try to explain it anyway.
Kaitlyn (Keeya King) is joining her boyfriend Michael (Corteon Moore) on a trip back to his hometown. They arrive in time for a local tradition called “The Mummering”. The town heads out in masks and speaks in riddles. They only reveal their true identities when someone solves the riddle. Harmless fun until a masked killer joins in on the fun.
Kaitlyn is introduced to the more dangerous parts of Michael’s hometown very quickly. She fends off an attack in a gas station bathroom before even reaching his family home. She discovers the identity of her attacker almost immediately. Warren (Ryan Bommarito) is the local louse behind her attack…and he finds himself the first victim of the masked man’s killing spree. It’s a clever way to introduce a higher level of evil than the local baddie.
In addition to dealing with town lowlifes…Kaitlyn and Michael have to wade through the ongoing issues of his family members. Money is tight. Relationship problems about. It isn’t hard for Kaitlyn to see why Michael was apprehensive about returning in the first place. Guess Who spends a good amount of time establishing its characters. We see their hardships while a masked killer moves ever closer in the background.
The two things never feel related. Michael’s family interactions build up a nice group of potential victims. Other than that, the masked murdering mummerer feels like a story cutting a path through some family drama. Which leads to the thing that Guess Who seems to be missing.
Things start feeling off when the two stories begin to combine. The story turns that Guess Who presents make sense narratively. Everything holds up to scrutiny. There’s nothing wrong with how the story resolves itself. But it feels like it’s missing something after everything is revealed. The masked killer plot is resolved in a way that feels at odds with how it had been presented up to that point. It’s like the story ends and you are still waiting around for that slasher killer aspect to pop back up. There’s no more to tell. The murderous mummerer story is over. And it feels strange.
It feels like Guess Who offered up something different than it is resolved to be. It’s not presenting something bad. It isn’t choosing something worse. What it does is a perfectly acceptable path to take. It just never feels complete due to the way it presents its masked killer as a bonus to its overriding narrative. When it turns out to simply be another part of it…it’s kind of a letdown. Even if it’s a fine choice for the story itself.
That’s the best way I can describe it without heading into spoiler territory. Minutes after everything was revealed I found myself looking around for that masked killer to come in and cut through the endgame. It felt so removed from the rest of the story that pulling it within the confines of it rang slightly hollow. It doesn’t undo some creepy moments and some decent work in front of and behind the camera. The overall package is stronger than more than a few Tubi originals. It just falls a bit short.
Scare Value
The horror elements in Guess Who feel so distinct from the character drama that when the two inevitably dovetail…you find yourself waiting for an extra layer that never arrives. Narratively, everything makes sense when all is revealed. It just felt like there was a little something extra going on…and it turns out there wasn’t. There’s a decent time to be had here. It just feels like something is missing.
2.5/5
Guess Who Link
Streaming on Tubi
