‘Host’ is the first coronavirus-era horror | movie review

The Cast of Shudder's Host

Host, billed as the first movie filmed and released during quarantine, follows a group of friends staging a Zoom seance with an uninvited guest

Quick cut: At just 57 minutes, Host is far from overly long. Although it certainly stretches its interesting premise to the max. Still, it achieves an anxiety-inducing atmosphere coupled with genuinely chilling horror setpieces that keeps you online.

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★★★

Movies respond to things going on around us—whether cultural, societal or political. It was only a matter of time before the coronavirus pandemic, one of the largest cultural, societal and political events, of our time was captured on film. And while the pandemic has certainly been horrifying, it's surprising that the first take on our new era is a horror film.

As we dive further into a tech-first world, the horror genre has grappled with how to tap into our inherent fear of the technology around us. In that vein, Host, a new techno horror movie streaming on Shudder, is the first movie to take place during these uncertain but certainly terrifying coronavirus times—and it's only fitting that the entire film takes place on a Zoom video call.

In a setup familiar to many of us, Host centers on a group of friends during their weekly Zoom calls to keep in touch—and stay sane—during the pandemic. Also like many of us, they're short of things to do to fill their time, which is why for this week's call Haley (Haley Bishop) hires a Seylan (Seylan Baxter), a medium, to hold a seance during their call. As expected, it doesn't go well.

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In 2015, Unfriended, at least in my opinion, became the first horror movie to properly capture the digital era of social media and the culture around it. That film, like Host, took place completely on a video call. However, its subversion of the horror genre—using tropes and characters from a slasher—fuels its plot more than the more straightforward ghost story of Host. Even thought its lean and mean 57 minute running time makes for a tight, entertaining spooky romp, I almost want more time to spend with the characters to truly care about them.

As the night trudges on, weird things happen to each of the participants as Seylan guides them through the motions of contacting the astral plane. However, they realize too late that the spirit communicating them is not friendly and may even be demonic. One by one, each of the participants, including Emma (Emma Louise Webb), Radina (Radina Drandova), Caroline (Caroline Ward), and Teddy (Edward Linard), is tormented in increasingly creative ways.

Haley Bishop in Host. Courtesy of Shudder.

Director Rob Savage leverages the natural horror in the things we already find terrifying—empty frames on Zoom, an open door behind a participant, the isolation of quarantine—and then intensifies it the kind of scares we expect from a ghost horror—and some we don't. It's increase from zero to one hundred is almost unbearable as the quiet tension ratchets up to full-on (surprisingly violent) terror.

Except for the fact that it takes place over Zoom and during the coronavirus pandemic, Host isn't exactly something we haven't seen before. But its pure creativity around using the things familiar to us for its scares is enough to appreciate it.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.