A holiday movie in January? Sure. But this one has a strange tradition I've never heard at the center of it.
Mummering is a Christmas-time house-visiting tradition that is mainly done in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ireland, parts of the United Kingdom and in Philadelphia. People dress in disguise and go from home to home. If they're let inside, they may dance, sing, tell a joke or share a riddle. Their hosts then guess the mummers' identities before offering them food or drink. The mummers wears masks and speak while inhaling to change their voices. Once everyone knows who they are, they remove their masks, spend some social time and then move on to the next location.
In the 80s, mummering had a revival when the band Simani released "Any Mummers Allowed In?"
Seriously, I had no idea this existed.
Now that you know what mummering is, you can enter the world of Guess Who.
Directed by Amelia Moses and written by Aaron Martin, Ian Carpenter and Matt Wells (Martin and Carpenter wrote the Terror Train remake and its sequel, as well as Marry F*** Kill on Tubi), this begins with Michael Gosse (Corteon Moore) and his new fiancee Kaitlyn Martindale (Keeya King) driving to his hometown. He explains that mummering will be part of the holiday, which seems to unsettle her. He tells her that he will be there and will keep her safe and that it's all in fun.
When they get there, however, she has a mummer named Warren (Ryan Bommarito) steal her mother's necklace. Michael attacks him and soon gets it back, which shows that he may have a darker side. Then, she's taken to his house, where she meets his mother Edith (Elizabeth Saunders), brother Bobby (Gabriel Darku) and sister Sofia (Vanessa Jackson) and her girlfriend Taylor (Amanda Ip). Everyone in town lives in trailers and things seem dire, but the families try to make the holidays fun even if they're going through things like Bobby's wife not letting him see their daughter.
That evening, as they go to the mummer parties, things go from fun and a little scary to horrifying as there's a killer on the loose. And just when the movie seems to be setting up that anyone could be the killer, well...spoiler warning.
Michael's family kidnaps Kaitlyn because her rich father Norman (Chimwemwe Miller) caused the suicide of their father and they want money from him to pay it back. The loss of a parent plays into both protagonists but isn't as developed as well as it could be. In fact, the movie seemingly shifts from being surprising and different to expected with the idea of who the slasher is seemingly forgotten and the idea that Kaitlyn could be killing people seemingly lost, as that was an intriguing angle. Instead, the supernatural air of a riddle slasher turns into a crime drama and I felt lost.
Guess Who is so close to being a good movie that I still advise that you see it. It has a different premise and setting that hasn't been used in the genre before and for that, I enjoyed most of the film.
