A succinct and accurate definition of nostalgia can be found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again.” In order to feel proper nostalgia, you have to mix the bitter with the sweet, or – as Pinhead might say – the pain with the pleasure. The Guest, which is the latest effort from the creative team of Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, evokes such a feeling. The film hearkens back to low budget efforts from the 70s and 80s, and, while it has its merits – pitch black comedy and strong violence among them – I couldn’t help think that I’ve seen these same themes done better before.

Wingard and Barrett are probably best known in horror circles for the feature film You’re Next (2011) and segments in the anthology films V/H/S (2012), V/H/S/2 (2013), and The ABCs of Death (2012), and, like their efforts in these films, The Guest is entertaining but uneven. Part black comedy, part superhero film, part family drama, part suspense thriller, part . . . okay, I think you get my point; The Guest doesn’t fit neatly into any genre category. Strangely enough, that’s also part of the film’s appeal.

Dan Stevens (of Downton Abbey fame) stars as David, a young man who – out of the blue – knocks on the door of the Peterson family’s house. The Petersons are grieving for their son, Caleb, who was just killed in Afghanistan, and David, claiming to be a close friend of Caleb’s, seems to be just what the family needs in their time of sorrow. With a too-white smile and overt politeness, David first endears himself to the family matriarch (played with dewy-eyed sincerity by Shelia Kelley) and eventually the rest of the Peterson clan: father, Spencer (Leland Orser, who genre fans will recognize as “knife-dick” from Se7en); older teen daughter, Anna (Maika Monroe); and high school freshman son, Luke (Brendan Meyer). Although every member of the Peterson household eventually opens up to David in one way or another, he develops special relationships with Anna and Luke. Unlike their father, who’s too busy trying to get ahead at work, David listens when Anna is having a tough time with her drug-dealing boyfriend or when Luke gets made fun of by the jocks at school. In short, David is there for the kids.

David’s a good listener, but he’s a helluva doer as well. When he picks up Luke from school after a particularly tough day of getting picked on, David asks Luke if he wants to go to the bar and grab a drink – a suggestion that Luke (who’s about 15) initially greets with skepticism – at which point David becomes insistent. You can tell that David doesn’t want to simply read Luke’s tormenters a bedtime story. After the two of them arrive at the bar, David cajoles Luke into telling him which group of kids has been attacking him. Luke does so, and David methodically kicks the crap out of them.

Similarly, David gains the trust of Anna, who has finished high school and works as a waitress at the local diner, but she isn’t sure what she wants to do with the rest of her life. One night, after Anna brings David to a party, she and her boyfriend have a fight, and David listens to her troubles. On the car ride home, there is palpable sexual tension between the two, which is further heightened when Anna sees a well-toned and bare-chested David exit the shower. Anna quickly overcomes her infatuation when she starts asking questions about David and getting only vague answers.

The darkly comedic aspects of the film are what work the best, particularly the progressively absurd and violent advice that David gives to Luke and the way that Mr. Peterson “needs a drink” to handle his increasingly stressful day-to-day. The acting is also uniformly good, with Stevens’ performance leading the way. David can be a smiling and sympathetic figure one moment and then an implacable, snarling psychopath the next. The main fault with the film lies in the script, which loses its way about halfway through before gaining momentum again in the finale, which takes place in a Halloween-themed high school maze (which is really the only nod to the horror genre in the film).

This fact brings me back to the nostalgia conundrum: the pleasure I got from the film derives from a well-acted and fun little dark comedy/family drama, written and directed with tongue-in-cheek rambunctiousness by Wingard and Barrett. Films that confront serious situations with black humor­ – think Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket or Michael Lehmann’s Heathers – have to walk a thin line between parody and outright silliness. And there’s the rub: the pain of the nostalgic feeling. While watching The Guest, I wanted it to measure up. I wanted it to achieve the lofty goals that it set for itself; however, I also couldn’t help but wish that I was watching another movie that had already been done – and done better.