The Guest List

On night of the wedding, as the guests dance, a storm rages and the lights go out. When they come back on, there is a trail of bloody footsteps no one notices and a loud scream.

(This section introduces all the main characters.)

Aoife, a wedding planner, and Freddy own a 10-bedroom property on Cormorant Island (also know as Inis an Amplóra) called the Folly. It’s a small island just off the coast of the Connemara region of West Ireland, only two miles wide. Aoife is from Dublin, and Freddy is an Englishman. A big event, the wedding of Will Slater and Julia “Jules” Keegan, is tomorrow.

Hannah and Charlie are wedding guests who are on their way by boat. They’re a married couple, and this is a weekend away from their two kids. Charlie and Jules are old and close friends, but Charlie dislikes Will. (Secretly, Hannah hopes his dislike isn’t driven by jealousy.) The boat captain, Mattie, tells them about the history of this island where his family has lived for centuries. It was first settled by a religious sect. However, twenty years ago, archaeologists uncovered the dead bodies of those settlers, inexplicably packed together in an airless pit. As the boat nears the island, they spot a cormorant bird, which is known in local folklore as “as a symbol of greed, bad luck and evil”.

Jules and Will got engaged after only a few months of dating. Jules runs a successful online magazine called The Download. She also comes from a wealthy family and owns a large house in Islington. Meanwhile, Will hosts a show called Survive the Night, survivalist show, where he (and a camera crew) gets left in the wild to fend for himself. Jules finds him exciting and he brings out a more adventurous side of her (he likes to have sex in public places and to film her nude). However, Jules received an anonymous note three weeks ago, warning her not to marry Will.

Jules is trying on her dress, when Will walks in. They’re interrupted by Jonathan “Johnno” Briggs, Will’s best man, who needs help because he has forgotten his suit. Jules doesn’t understand why they’re friends, since Johnno is kind of a mess, but Will says they have history. Will is also surprised to see the seating chart and find out that Piers Whiteley, his producer, is invited to the wedding. Jules had assumed Will would want him there.

Will’s friends, Femi, Angus, Duncan, Peter, are all ushers in the wedding and show up a little later. Will, Johnno and the other guys were all schoolmates at a posh boarding school, “Trevs”/Trevellyan’s, though Johnno and Will’s families were less affluent than the others. Will attended because his father was the headmaster, and Johnno got in on a rugby scholarship. Now, Femi (short for Oluwafemi) is a surgeon, Angus works works for this dad’s development firm, Duncan is a venture capitalist and Peter is an ad exec with a coke problem. Meanwhile, Johnno has been working as an instructor at an adventure center (climbing, building camps, etc.), but he recently started up a whiskey brand.

Jules’s maid of honor (the only bridesmaid) is her half sister, Olivia. Olivia is 19 and beautiful, but mentally a little “fragile,” (she has a cutting problem and an eating disorder). (Will warns Johnno to stay away from her, when Johnno mentions how attractive she is.) She attends Exeter and has recently gotten out of a relationship (with a guy named Callum who has a new girlfriend, Ellie). Olivia and Jules share the same mother, Araminta. Araminta is a former actress and is here for the wedding too. She had Jules when she was young, and raised her by herself.

Charlie and Hannah’s boat pulls up, and Jules shows them the chapel where the wedding will be held tomorrow. Olivia goes down to The Whispering Cave, an open-ended cave on the island, and runs into Hannah (Jules and Charlie are off “catching up” without her). As they chat, Olivia confides in Hannah about being sad about Callum. Hannah talks about her sister, Alice. Elsewhere, as the sun sets, Aoife finishes up preparations for the rehearsal dinner.

The sound of the scream cuts through the air, causing the guests to freeze. A young waitress, stumbles into the tent, clearly disheveled. “Outside. So much blood. A body,” she says before collapsing.

Hannah and Charlie go down to the drawing room before dinner. Hannah is introduced to Georgina, Duncan’s beautiful wife. In the posh crowd, Hannah feels a little inadequate. Asked about missing the “hen” (bachelorette party), she attributes the absence to her kids though in reality it was just too expensive.

As the party, Charlie explains that he first met Jules as her sailing instructor one summer in Cornwall. (Now, Charlie teaches high school Geography.) Jules laughs about her crush on him that summer. When Johnno interrupts to ask if they ever had sex, the two don’t answer. Suddenly, Hannah spots a masked face pressed against the window, causing her to drop her glass.

With the storm outside, Aoife recommends the guests stay inside, despite the waitress’s pronouncement. However, Will’s friends think a few of them should go together to investigate.

The face turns out to be Jules’s father, Ronan, playing a prank. Ronan, a very successful property developer, arrives with his latest wife, Séverine, a young frenchwoman. Later, Jules’s mother stands to make a self-congratulatory speech that makes Jules’s blood boil, but Jules manages to suppress her anger.

During dinner, Hannah chats with Johnno. She asks about the “stag” (bachelor party) which Charlie had attended, and Johnno notes that Charlie clearly didn’t tell her what had happened. They also chat about Will’s show, which Johnno had done a screen test for (as a duo), but they preferred Will solo. Back in their school days, a rite of passage was “Survival”, where other kids would kidnap younger boys and drop them off in the woods to fend for themselves for a night. Johnno then shows off his new whiskey brand, Hellraiser, and Hannah (an illustrator, but now on permanent maternity leave) appreciates the bottle design.

After dinner, Will’s friends want to play a drinking game, and they pressure Charlie into joining them. As the game progresses the guys get louder and rowdier. Hannah leaves, and she and Olivia go back to the cave to chat and sip vodka.

The four ushers go together to investigate, bringing torches and a first-aid kit.

Olivia tells Hannah about getting on a dating app after Callum broke up with her. She started sleeping with an older guy, Steven. They only ever got together for sex, so she wanted to take him to one of Jules’s fancy magazine parties to impress him. Instead, she got drunk, made a fool of herself and he ghosted her. There’s something else, too, involving blood, but Olivia doesn’t say more.

When Olivia gets back to the Folly, Johnno drunkenly comes on to her, but she gets away from him. Johnno goes to bed but he’s high and liquored up. He thinks he sees someone in his room, which makes him throw up in fear.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Jules are up on the battlements of the building, looking out. Jules suggests that maybe they could’ve ended up together and asks Charlie if he’s jealous of Will, but Charlie brushes off the conversation. Jules goes back to her room, but she finds a large clump of seaweed under the covers. Will dismisses it as a prank. Instead, he replaces the bedding with those from the spare room (intended for his parents who haven’t shown up yet).

Late into the night after everyone finally goes to bed, Aoife hears a wailing noise coming from outside. She grabs a fire poker and goes to investigate. She finds Johnno, who looks scared, miserable and also like he’s been crying. He tells her he must be seeing things, and goes back to the Folly.

Early in the morning, Hannah wakes up and tries to have sex with Charlie, who rebuffs her even though they haven’t been intimate in a long time. Instead, she goes to take a walk outside. On her cell, she calls home to her mom, who’s taking care of the kids, Ben and Lottie. As she continues walking, she gets stuck in a bog and has to be rescued by Duncan and Pete. She rushes back to the Folly afterwards.

Meanwhile, the weather report warns of high winds for later that day.

Outside the tent, the four ushers struggle to see in the dark and can barely hear each other over the howling wind. The walk along the tract of land between the tent and the Folly, surrounded by bog on either side. Pete gets stuck in the bog, and they fetch him out.

As Jules gets ready in the morning, she spots the note (“Will Slater is not the man you think he is. He’s a cheat and a liar. Don’t marry him.”) in her makeup bag. She wonders to herself why she kept it. Finally, she rips it up and flushes it away.

As the four trudge, Angus tells them he thought Survival was a stupid game, noting that a kid died from it. Duncan says it was an accident. Fermi also notes that what they did to Charlie, left him in “a total state.” In the distance, they spot Freddy, holding something in his hand.

Outside, the guests arrive, including Will’s parents. As Mattie captains the last boat over, he tells Aoife that a storm is coming. Meanwhile, Olivia wants to tell Hannah the rest of her story to finally get it off her chest, so she goes to Hannah’s room. But Hannah and Charlie are in the middle of an argument, so she leaves.

Elsewhere, Will, Johnno, Femi and Duncan get dressed, and Johnno squeezes himself into Will’s spare suit. Will expresses displeasure over the seaweed prank (reminiscent of one they used to pull in their school days), though all the guys deny it was them. Johnno thinks about Will’s “tactics” in their school days that made him popular, despite being the headmaster’s son. After Will passed around a topless photo of a girl he’d slept with, he was untouchable.

As Jules gets ready to walk down the aisle, she asks her father what he thought of Will, now that they’ve finally met. When her father is cagey about it, she gets annoyed. Jules brings up the fact that he was barely in her life, so the least he could do is tell her what she wants to hear (that he thinks Will is great, etc.). He demurs, saying that he’s not going to lie to her.

The ceremony goes quickly, and afterwards there’s a bar set up. Aoife is busy trying to keep people out of the graveyard, where her own family has a small patch. She’s surprised how intrusive it feels to have all these people on the island. Meanwhile, Hannah doesn’t know anyone, so she chats with the barmen, Eoin and Seán. They say that it’s an island of ghosts because of the dead bodies of the settlers that were found. Later, Hannah finds Charlie. He introduces her to Rory, who references the stag night, but still no one tells her what happened.

Johnno runs into Mr. Slater, Will’s father. Mr. Slater mentions disapprovingly that he knows that back in the day, Johnno broke in to steal the GSCE (UK standardized test) papers, which allowed Will to cheat and get high marks. Johnno gets out of the conversation, quick. Instead, he runs into Piers (Will’s producer), who he met at the screen test. Johnno feels a bit bitter since they rejected him and he was the one who had suggested the idea to Will to begin with. Then, to Johnno’s confusion, Piers implies that Johnno hadn’t wanted to be on the show.

On the beach, Olivia is feeling miserable. She finds a secluded spot and cuts herself. It reminds her of her abortion. She had gotten pregnant and then Steven had ghosted her. (Ashamed, she let her mother believe it was Callum.) As she thinks about it, she walks into the water, and before long she realizes she’s drowning.

The storm is picking up now. Will notices Johnno and Piers chatting and rushes over to them. Soon, however, the crowd notices that someone is drowning. Jules shouts that it’s Olivia, and Will and runs in to save her. Jules is concerned at first, but then angry at Olivia for making a scene. Aoife finally cuts the tension by announcing it’s time to eat.

Johnno is furious, as Piers has revealed that Will cut him out of the show. Will didn’t steal the idea outright, since it was Johnno’s idea and Johnno knows the truth about what happened to the kid who died during Survival in their school days. Instead, Will told the producers that Johnno wasn’t interested. But the truth is, they had wanted both of them. However, Will’s agent had been handling things for them, so Johnno was never told. (Johnno also knows that Will was the one who stole the GSCE papers, but clearly Will told his father is was him.)

Hannah finds Olivia to check on her. Olivia downplays the incident, but Hannah is concerned. She tells Olivia that she reminds her of Alice, her sister. When Alice decided to dump her first boyfriend, he retaliated by uploading a explicit video of her and sending it around. She was too ashamed to talk to anyone about it, but Hannah wishes she would have since she loved her regardless. Hannah leaves out that seventeen years ago, Alice killed herself.

Freddy rushes up to the four, holding a torch in his hand. Freddy tells them they’ve called the police. As they debate what to do, they realize they lost Pete at some point.

As the guests eat, Ronan gives the first speech. Jules recalls how she had asked for wedding venue pitches on The Download, and Aoife had given a great presentation. But the deciding factor was really the price, since Ronan had stopped providing financially for Jules after he married Séverine. Aoife had offered a 50% discount. Still, Ronan gives a heartfelt speech, acknowledging his failings as a parent and how Jules has managed to succeed anyway.

Will then gives a quick speech, explaining how he and Jules met. He attended a party as a plus one, but his date had to leave. He decided to return to the party and ended up meeting Jules.

As he gives his speech, Olivia (who had gone by “Bella” on the dating app for safety reasons) recalls how had gotten drunk at the party that she’d taken “Steven” (now revealed to be Will — he had chosen to use a pseudonym on the app as well) to. “Steven”/Will had gone back to meet Jules (not knowing they were related), who turned out to be a better match for him. He ghosted Olivia/”Bella”. It wasn’t until after they were engaged that Jules had introduced Olivia to her new fiance (“Steven”/Will) to Olivia’s horror and Will’s surprise.

(So, Jules has been frustrated all along about Olivia’s attitude about the wedding, etc., but it’s been because Olivia is upset that the groom, Will, is a guy who got her pregnant and dumped her.)

Hannah and Charlie aren’t seated next to each other, and it occurs to her that she’s barely seen him all day. He’s seated next to Jules and is MC’ing the event. He calls up Johnno for the best man’s speech. Johnno is drunk. He tells the crowd about how his suit is too small because Will insisted on a suit that Johnno couldn’t afford, so Johnno didn’t buy a suit (so, Johnno is wearing Will’s spare because he couldn’t afford the suit, not because he “forgot” his suit).

Johnno then calls to the rest of the ushers, who (in the name of tradition), blindfold Will, tie him up and take him into the Cave of Whispers. Johnno assures the rest of the guys they’ll go get him if he hasn’t found his way back in half an hour, but Johnno turns back to talk to Will. Johnno tells him he knows about Piers and the show. He also tells him that the whiskey brand is a lie (he didn’t have the connections or funding to make it happen. Instead, he used the label he’d made and slapped it on some bottles.) and that he go fired from his adventure center job for being stoned. He’s been unhappy and Will screwed him on the one good thing that had happened to him.

The four ushers drunkenly stumble back into the tent, but suddenly Charlie is about to punch Duncan regarding the stag. Charlie finally tells Hannah what happened in Stockholm — they took a ferry out to a place, gave him mushrooms and they all got naked and went swimming. Then they ditched him naked and alone with no canoe on one of the islands. He was there freezing for hours until they came back and found him sobbing. Charlie insists it must have been Will’s idea.

Hannah is skeptical that it was Will, which makes Charlie angry. Hannah, in turn, accuses Charlie of being inappropriate with Jules. Finally, Charlie ends up admitting that he cheated on Hannah with Jules after Ben was born. (They hadn’t had sex in a long time at the time because Hannah’s stitches were still healing.) Hannah leaves angrily.

Back in the cave, Johnno recounts what really happened to the kid that died. Johnno and Will had ordered Loner, nickname for a kid who had idolized Will, to clean their dorm. He did, but he had also found the GSCE papers in the process, i.e. proof of Will’s cheating. That night, Will decided to play Survival with Loner as their victim. They tied him up to a handrail, the tide came in and the kid died. The next day, Johnno and Will kept their mouths shut even as the police investigated. There was one kid, who they nicknamed Fatfuck, who might have known something, but Johnno’s dad was the headmaster so nothing ever came of it. Now, Johnno demands to know if Will knew that the tide would come up. Will insists it was an accident.

Finally, Aoife interrupts, saying she was sent to look for Will. Back in the tent, the dancing has started. Aoife notes to herself how she’d caught two guests fooling around earlier in the day, both married but not to each other. She also thinks to herself about the conversation she overheard just now.

As Will and Jules dance, Jules wants to know what’s going on with him and Johnno. Will asks Jules to drop it, promising that he’ll cut Johnno out of his life after tonight. Will then dances with a reluctant Olivia, while Hannah dances with a random man she meets, Luis.

The three remaining guys come across the graveyard. They find a mangled gold crown (which Jules had been wearing in the ceremony).

Olivia’s cousin Beth notices that she’s quite drunk. Beth fetches Will, who takes her outside for air. Jules goes looking for them. Meanwhile, Olivia is telling Will that she needs to tell Jules the truth about them. She had hoped her note (she was the one who wrote the note telling Jules not to marry him) would help Jules to hit the brakes, but it didn’t work. Will tries to dissuade her, but when Olivia insists, he threatens her with releasing nude photos of her. He starts pulling her towards the edge of the cliff, causing her shoe to come off.

Next, they find a pale grey silk shoe with a jeweled buckle (which is the shoe Olivia was wearing).

Luis and Hannah go to the bar. He introduces her to Jethro. They both went to Uni with Will. As they chat about Will and a girl who dumped him, Hannah realizes with dread that Alice is the girl they’re talking about. Will dated Alice, and when she dumped him, he posted the video of her, and she killed herself.

Finally, they come across a body.

Jules is enraged with Will after hearing their conversation. She destroys her crown. She then calls out to Will and tells him to come inside.

They see that the bloodied body is Will. Out of the darkness, another person steps toward them.

Will leaves Olivia and goes with Jules as instructed. He thinks about how Olivia had reminded him of Alice, the girl who had dumped him. Walking back, he feels confident he can manage Olivia, but Johnno needs to be dealt with urgently. Back in the tent, Hannah seethes with anger as she watches them cut the cake. She edges close, looking at the knife.

When the lights go out, Hannah, Olivia and Jules are all in the tent and furious with Will. Johnno is outside. Will is in the bathroom, cleaning cake off his face.

The three see Johnno, covered in blood, walking up to them. He’s holding a knife.

Will walks out of the bathroom to see Aoife. She admits that the seaweed prank was her. Will is confused, but she says that Darcey (or as he knew him, “Loner”) was her brother. She knows he killed him. She offered the venue to Jules to lure him here, so she could talk to him but instead she overheard the conversation. Freddy went to school with them, too — he’s the guy they nicknamed Fatfuck. He was Darcey’s roommate and heard them carry Darcey off. Aoife believes the grief of Darcey’s death killed both her parents.

Will sees that she’s carrying a knife.

Johnno tries to explain that he found Will and pulled the knife out (which turned out to be the wrong thing to do), but the other three guys are screaming at him. The police show up and arrest Johnno. He thinks about the person he thought he saw in his hotel room at night — it was Darcey. He thought he saw Darcey’s ghost there which is why he was crying. Johnno thinks he will likely go to prison for this, but he wonders who really killed Will.

Aoife stabs Will in the heart.

Epilogue

Afterwards, Olivia and Jules talk and hug. Hannah and Charlie return home. Things are different but they don’t have the energy to deal with it yet. Hannah is glad Alice was avenged, she just wishes she could have done it herself.