MovieChat Forums > The Perfect Host (2011) Discussion > Analysing the film..SPoilers ..

Analysing the film..SPoilers ..

posted 14 years ago by med77_99
22 replies | jump to latest

this is my take and my own analysis of this film, obviously it contains heavy spoilers to those who have not seen it, so if you have not seen it, stop reading now ..

A) the first question that comes to mind, is did Warwick imagine these people or were they ghosts or real ? obviously, the answer is easy and that he was imagining them.
but the more important question is, did he imagine them out of his own sick game or was he hallucinating ?
i will list three different explanations :

1) that he is completely crazy, and he is actually seeing and hearing those people, that is he is hallucinating.
and i find this hard to believe, because this means he is completely crazy and lost his touch with reality, but if that is the case, then he would have been noticed by his colleages at work and they would have known that he was crazy and so he would not have continued in his job as a ploiceman.

So, 2) he was imagine playing, just like kids, he was not actually seeing and hearing them, but rather fantasizing that he is surrounded by people, that he has friends and that they talk and interact with him, that is, he fabricated a big fantasy world and actually pretended to believe it. but deep inside he knew it was not real. something that is called Fixed Fantasy.
maybe similar to Factitious disorders, where poeple fake their illness for attention so much that they sort of start to believe it is real.

3) Drugs and intoxication, probably very close to number 2 above, where he fantasize about having friends and people around him and he enhances the experience by using drugs, like hallucinogens which helps him to actually experience, see and hear these people. and unlike in number 1, people who are using drugs don't lose their touch with reality most of the time and know that what they are seeing are not real.

a side not here, the whole thing about Red and White wines, probably he mix the Red wine with sedatives, while he mix the White wines with stimulants and hallucinogens, and so he drinks the White to enhance his fantasy world, and that is why i noticed him starting seeing more and more people in his house as he drank more, maybe stronger effects of the increasing amount of drugs in his system ?

there could have been a 4th explanation, that is he has a multiple personality disorder, but usually, the other personalities take over completely and do not coexist at the same time, so i dismessed that possiblity.

so i guess most likely, it is option number 3 that is closer to what really is happening.

B ) another question, did he actually kill those people, or shall we say, that person in his photo album ?

my take is that Warwick is a psychopath who likes living in a fantasy world, he likes inflicting harm in others, and probably fantasizes about killing others, just like any other psychopath, they usually escelate in their psychopathology, and they shift from fantasizing about killing someone to actually doing it.

1) I really can not tell if he actually killed the guy in the photo album or not, probably not and he was just another victim whom Warwick kidnapped and fantasized about killing him but never did. maybe he was another person wanted by the police or a homeless, we don't know. but at this stage, Warwick still did not escelate into the real killing.
so when John Taylor dropped by, it was Warwick's chance to live another killing fantasy with him, never having the itention of killing him from the start.
that is why, the scene where Warwick was having a fantasy of having sex while John was tied up in the tub, probably, that when Warwick was so close to get to the part where he acts the murder, he started to get sexually aroused, because that fantasy has a sexual arousal effect on him.

2) that Warwick has actually reached the killing stage, and that he actually killed the first guy in the album, and that he was planning to kill John too, but when he knew he was the guy who stole the money, he changed his plan, and decided to play around with him, and enjoy just the fantasy of killing him without really doing it, so he can get a chance to steal the money from him after he lets him go.

C ) is Warwick going to kill the ploiceman at the end ?
probaly yes.
wether it was option 1 or 2 above about the killings, he is most likely has a plan to kill the ploiceman.
if anyone noticed, just before the ploiceman walked into Warwick's office to confront him, Warwick was looking at all the murder and killing photos with joy, because these images arouse him.
so if he was still not at the killing stage of his psychopathology, he is very close to flip and make his fantasies real, and so now that the policeman knows about him, he might have found the motivation to help him excute his fantasies and turn them into realities.

i guess that is about it. any thoughts ? questions ?

[–] nicktomnay-1 14 years ago

This is the first actual analysis of the film I have read. That includes all critics.

I'm really glad that The Perfect Host has stimulated you and inspired you to write the above.

I won't say if I agree/ disagree with your insights, but I will say that your analysis is based on an actual reading of the film, which is something that I applaud you for.

P.S - You pretty much nailed it.

[–] med77_99 14 years ago

thanks Nicktomnay :)

[–] GrimmBrother 14 years ago

Nice, the director approves of your analysis [thumbsup]

The Ugly Truth About Twilight Fans: http://tinyurl.com/SoaSaga

[–] SurviveAlive 14 years ago

I think you must have missed some parts of the movie that should give you a little bit of a better understanding.

In the morning, we see that Warwick is about to take his antipsychotics. His friends are discussing the fact that they want to stay around, but Warwick needs his meds (to make them go away) so he can function properly at work. Warwick only takes one, instead of the two that he needs, so that he is only kinda crazy at work. We can see this is the effect, as he still sees his friends while he is at work, but he doesn't interact with them as much.

You also seem to have misread his reason for doing this stuff. First, looking back on the Super 8 film Warwick shows John, Warwick appears to be slashing himself, and we are made to believe that him doing his "own hair and makeup" was referring to his face. Later, we see the giant makeup kit, a fake knife, and John's wounds are fake. This is where the movie reveals that Warwick wasn't really slashing himself (he doesn't have scars on his stomach and chest later). As he says while watching the super 8 film, Warwick finds his sick "art" to be beautiful.

Additionally, there are several lines of dialogue between the cops while riding in the car to the parking garage that explain why Warwick does what he does to those 'victims'. He is trying to scare them to deter them from committing future crimes. He tells John throughout the night that all this bad stuff is happening as a result of John's actions and choices. Warwick didn't kill any of his victims; that was a major plot twist. Why would he actually kill those people and then just emulate the entire ritual in John's case? Warwick shows them the film, the photo album, and gives them fake wounds to scare them straight.

I do agree with you about the end of the film. Of course he is going to kill the detective that found out about him. What other choice does he have? It doesn't really go along with his M.O. (and in a movie with so many plot twists, this one seemed forced- like they needed to end with a twist just for twists' sake), but it isn't really that big of a leap for Warwick to take.

I hope this helps. Re-watch the movie and keep an eye out for these scenes.

[–] med77_99 14 years ago

Yes, i must have missed the part with the Medications, but how do you know they were Meds and not something else ? does it say antipsychotic on the bottle ?

i must admit though, it might be possible that he is actually sick and hallucinating but the MEDS, if he is actually taking them, might have made him stable enough to continue working.
however, to be a ploiceman is not an easy thing, and the fact that he got diagnosed with a mental illness and has been given a prescribtion is something that would have eliminated his carear as a ploiceman regardelss of how stable he is. even the ploiceman who was suspicouss of him would have found out about his illness and spoke to him about it in the end.

for me, Warwick is a psychopath, i mean he is a policeman, so why would he scare his victims into not commiting other crimes when he can simply arrest them ? he kiddnaps them, drug them and toy around with them. he enjoys it.
he just brags about criminals, when he himself is involved in a number of criminal activities including kidnapping and not to mention stealing that money and not returning it to the law.
i don't think he scares them, in fact, i would believe any person who has gone through that would have returned to take revenge from him, not get scared of him !! the only reason they don't is because they are wanted by the law.

about him killing them, i did say i really don't know the answer to that, but it is clear that Warwick enjoys the thought of inflicting harm on others, hence he was sexually aroused around the time he was about to act the murder. so if he enjoys the thought of it, he must have had fantasies and wishes of actually killing someone some day, but we don't know if he got to that stage or not.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] med77_99 14 years ago

I just don't buy the whole scaring his victims scenario. while he does scare them at first, but once they discover he was just playing around, the whole scare or fright will go away and they will actually think he is a loonatic and will come back to pay him back. so it really don't work that way.

plus, we really don't know anything about his earlier victims, do we know they were also criminals ? we don't, we are just assuming. and even when John passed by, Warwick never had a plan to bring him in and scare him so as to avert him from crime, it was all just chance, a coincidence that John was passing by Warwick's house.

and Warwick does not really care if his victims went straight or not, i mean he is a criminal himself, stealing money !! besides, what sort of punishment should stealing a bank get ? i mean there is no debate about the system punishment of stealing, you steal, you go to prison, what more does Warwick want ?

No, he is not scaring them to stop crime.

[–] UFO_Cryptkeeper 14 years ago

I thought his party "guests" may have been people he had previously killed, such as the district attorney. Perhaps that DA was onto him years earlier.

[–] weaver_with_a_crutch 14 years ago

.....So how do we explain the entirely different voice and way he carries himself when he is Warwick at work and Warwick the perfect host?

Imo, he is just a high functioning delusional schizophrenic, with one alter personality.

[–] beisetsu 14 years ago

but he has killed. when he takes his jacket off the body of the parking attendant.

i think he was going to kill john because hes "not a liar" he said if he won the chess game he was going to release him and he did so why would he lie about killing him?

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] redmad 13 years ago

Nice analysis.

One other thing I have noticed was that the envelope that detective Morton opens (at the end) with Warwick's and John's photo, has fake stamps (re-used stamps) on it.

There is a double zoom on the stamps, one before the detective opens it and one after he checked the photo. I guess the reason for this is that we have to notice that the stamps are fake (check the incomplete stamp on them).

Maybe I am wrong and this has no actually meaning, but my thought came from the double zoom on the stamps. If this is true, it means that Warwick "set himself up" to detective Morton, so he could have him as a guest at his house.

On the other side, he could just ask him, but anyway how could John have this photo with him without Warwick noticing that it was missing from his album?

[–] TheSummer2012 13 years ago

Good spot, redmad. The stamps are indeed used and the double zoom would suggest this is intended and not an error (the postage stamp on the postcard from Sydney was complete, for example). That would indeed mean it was Warwick who wanted Morton to investigate and come to his dinner party.

John would also be unlikely to know Morton's name and his role in the investigation.

[–] lulupalooza 10 years ago

No. The filmmaker intended for John to have sent the photo from Mexico to get revenge on Warwick. The close-up of the stamps was to show that John made it safely to south of the border. Also, what is the point of showing John shoving the photo into the back of his pants (or back pocket), but then somehow we are to assume that Warwick gets it back to send it to the very people he works for? No way. The filmmaker was actually being straightforward with this scene.

"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

[–] TwinofKate 13 years ago

So here's my question, what was he going to do at his "dinner part" without John?

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[–] wrenage 13 years ago

Count me with the group who doesn't think Warwick killed any of his victims. He was another version of Jigsaw from the Saw movies or the guy from Seven — one of those moralist pyschos. The twist in this case is that he didn't actually kill victims. It was his own sick deterent to get them to get their lives in order, keep things straight, is how I believe he put it, and get real jobs because there are "always ways to make money" other than stealing.

I also don't think Warwick plans on killing the policeman at the end either. I don't know if he is going to put the guy through his crazy game to try to convince the policeman he is right, but I don't think he planned on killing the guy. The policeman had Warick's photo, which he was going to give to the lab for analysis. It would look pretty bad for that policeman to wind up dead after being invited to Warwick's house for dinner while the lab is analyzing the photo in question.

[–] Profondorosso75 13 years ago

<<<<So here's my question, what was he going to do at his "dinner part" without John? >>>>

Haha, I had this question also. Well, he would have had a dinner party of course! I'm sure he has done it many times before. Notice he has a framed picture of himslef with his arm around thin air. of course he sees one of his "friends" there. I think it's important to remember he is schitzophrenic AND also has a fetish for death/gore/control maybe some extreme s&m type thing, I don't really know about that stuff, lol. I think we can assume these are two seperate issues that just happen to converge that night by chance.

"everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die"

[–] mjd_subs2 13 years ago

...C ) is Warwick going to kill the ploiceman at the end ?
probaly yes....

Thanks for posting this. I just finished watching it for the second time on Netflix streaming.

I would have liked a "peek" into the answer to this question for us viewers. Personally, I do not believe a Detective would just blindly go to the Lt's house, alone, without leaving information/word with a third party (especially given their conversation in the office).

However, I also think it's unlikely for a Detective to have approached his direct supervisor with his suspicions in the first place. How would John have known which Detective was working on his case and why wouldn't he send the incriminating photo to someone OVER Warwick versus a subordinate. This last scene requires us to suspend belief anyway. It just seems like the writers wanted us to know that John did "fight back" in some way.