Host (2020)
Host is an innovative little found footage film in that it was filmed entirely on Zoom and during the Covid 19 lockdown. It has a group of friends assembling on Zoom during the lockdown to conduct an online seance. When one of the girls (Jemma Moore) doesn’t take the event seriously, her prank invites a malevolent entity into all their homes.
Hour long paranormal horror is directed by Rob Savage from his script with Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd. It’s fun and can be quite spooky, especially in it’s first half. It’s at it’s most effective when it is being subtly creepy, as when the girls first lose the help of their online medium (Seylan Baxter) and now have to go it alone, quarantined in their homes, with things going bump in the night. The second half takes things to another and more over-the-top level and that’s when it loses it’s grip somewhat. A lot of the bits we then see are directly lifted from the Paranormal Activity series, such as bodies dropping from the ceiling, powder on the floor to reveal footprints and sheets that suddenly take on the shape of something underneath. To give Savage credit, some of this stuff still works and the jump scares are effective, but some of it is also very hokey and the familiarity with the Oren Peli series, removes Host from the veneer of being real, that worked so well in the first act. Still, overall, the inventiveness in getting it made, a charming and effective cast and all the things it succeeds at, make it a fun 60 minute spook show. Stars Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova and Caroline Ward as our five main characters all using their own names. Seylan Baxter plays the medium Seylan and Edward Linard plays friend Teddy, who leaves the circle early on, but gets drawn back in towards the end. Now streaming on Shudder.
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