Host review
This zoom-based horror is successfully spooky – but its feelings are screen-deep.
In December 2020, among lockdown christmas chaos and further adjustments to living virtually, director Rob Savage decided to seize the opportunity to take what could have been a cliched concept- a Zoom-based horror- and turn it into a genuinely effective chiller, Host. He assembled a remote group of seven actors to play friends making the ill-advised decision to conduct a seance over a video chat.
As absurd as the premise might be, the film is successful in that the characters mostly react in ways that seem rooted in reality- the virus does exist but, believably at this stage, it’s rarely commented on, a mask here, a joke about coughing there. While there might be a few too many “I must go and investigate that noise” set-ups, the interplay between the actors feels real, as if the viewer is watching a group of real friends facing supernatural dangers.
The Zoom format is used very successfully throughout the entirety of the film to tell the story and thus the scope of camera techniques and editing available is limited- it supposedly plays out in real time. This means that, when watching on a laptop and having become all-too-familiar with the nature of online communication, the film almost begins to ‘trick’ the viewer into subconsciously feeling as though we are part of the call, making it an all the more subversive experience. What's more, sound is used to reinforce the disjointedness of online calls, with people cutting out and voices being warped in the already bizarre and off-kilter way they do in real life.
Savage also utilises the locations of each participant to enhance the horror, recounting on BBC Radio 4’s The Film Programme, that “at the beginning…I made each actor show the scariest place in their house or apartment, like a weird attic...or a dark hallway.” This use of Mise-en -scene partnered with the pixelated camera quality on Zoom created a genuinely chilling atmosphere.
However Host certainly doesn’t go further than its surface effect of socially distanced jumps and scares. As the cliches begin to pile up, the film loses substance - it certainly doesn’t reach for deeper meaning beyond the seance and gore, and captures the atmosphere of lockdown but not the emotion. This can feel in some ways like a missed opportunity. Perhaps, with such a unique context and format (a middle-of-covid zoom call), it would have been interesting to delve into the more complex psychological and isolating effects of lockdown, by examining the profound melancholia and loneliness of the last year through the genre of horror, blending genres much like Natalie Erika James’s successful 2020 release Relic (which looked at poignant topics of dementia and grief through the lens of horror). This would have created a more rounded piece of cinema that would have packed a greater emotional punch and stayed in the mind of the viewer longer after the end credits.
But ultimately the film ‘does what it says on the tin’: it is a found-footage-esque horror with effective tension and a chilly atmosphere that carries throughout. With minimal resources but extensive wit and invention, Host is a successfully spooky ordeal that shows just what can be done during challenging times.
Host is available on streaming service Shudder now