Host

Host

Director: Rob Savage. Cast: Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb Radina Drandova, Caroline Ward, Alan Emrys.

I’ll come out clean straight away: Host is one of the best horror of the last few years and definitely one scariest films I’ve seen in a long long time. In my life I’ve seen more horror films that I’d care to admit. I think I’ve now become sort of immune to most of them these days (mainly because most of them are actually quite bad, but also because the tropes are pretty much always always the same), but this one caught me by surprise and had me glued to the screen, terrified and delighted at the same time (I know… I’m a bit weird: I love to be scared)It is incredibly timely: it was made during the lockdown and it capitalises on our fear and paranoia of being stuck at home alone with such ingeniousness and intelligence. Yes, it does rely on the “usual” jump scare tactics, but it’s so well executed that you can’t help by admire it. I loved how it slowly builds the tension, how real it all feels (well, up to a point: it probably goes slightly over the top in a few places towards the end), how each person is being framed within their screen and how your eyes are constantly moving from one person to the next, checking for those suspicious lights in the background, for that open door right at the back… and so on. Of course it’s not a masterpiece, but I had so much fun with this that it deserves to be up there with the best of this awful 2020.

The film is out on the 4th of December

and it’s available on Shudder.

And this is a lovely interview with the makers and my friend Mike