Host
Directed by Rob Savage
Six friends get together during lockdown for their weekly zoom call. It's Haley’s turn to organise an activity and instead of a quiz, she’s arranged for a Medium to conduct a séance. Bored and feeling mischievous, Jemma decides to have some fun and invents a story about a boy in her school who hanged himself. However, her prank gives license for a demonic presence to cross over, taking on the guise of the boy in Jemma’s made-up story. The friends begin noticing strange occurrences in their homes as the evil presence begins to make itself known, and they soon realise that they might not survive the night. A SHUDDER ORIGINAL.
During an online séance, six friends accidentally invite the attention of a demonic presence.
Cast: Haley Bishop, Radina Drandova, Jemma Moore, Caroline Ward, Emma Webb, Edward Linard
Member Reviews
I'm fresh off my first watch of this (I know, it's insane I haven't seen it until now) and going in, basically the only expectation I had was "Unfriended but good," but I don't think that comes close to doing the movie justice. The presence of so many setups of tropes that don't end up happening in favor of, well, I won't spoil it, but I will say it subverted my expectations in basically every version of that phrase. First off, the acting is absolutely incredible, especially for the budget. Everything feels natural as far as the dialogue goes, the characters arguing and talking over one another and such, and there wasn't a single line of dialogue that seemed superfluous or cliché. The sort of defining traits of the characters didn't feel tropey at all, it just felt like a normal dynamic in a group of friends. The movie also takes great advantage to the camera work, and at times there are awkward and uncomfortable camera angles because that's what it would actually look like. Replaying past footage, face recognition filters, cameras popping in and out of the call, but don't think for a second they use it as a cop-out to keep a lot of the deaths offscreen. It gets pretty violent, I'll say that much. The pacing was incredible, and a story like this really benefits from the runtime being under an hour by being basically nonstop once the spooky stuff starts. There were many moments, honestly a good majority of the movie, that I thought the movie was going to follow a specific trope or scare tactic, but it kept me engaged the whole time, because I was excited to see how the movie would surprise me next. I really don't have any criticism for this movie. It knows what it needs to do, and it does it efficiently; with a combination of great skill, creativity, and acting talent, fantastic editing, and a final third that made me jump so hard I hurt my shoulder. Even if I took a point off for that, I'd still give it a 5/5.
HOST is the most best horror film ever since it came out in 2020. The last scene ended when Haley and Jemma were attacked by a demon until the zoom call timer ended. I want to ask Rob Savage if I can make a sequel with him. Maybe it will have an estimated release date in Late 2025 or Early 2026.
By far one of the best found footage horror movies ever ! highly recommend 👌
Very good movie. Short and sweet.
expected more based on reviews. . really not good.