Host

Rob Savage's 'Host' plays out like the greatest hits of found footage. It takes the scariest elements of genre favorites like 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999) and 'Paranormal Activity' (2007) and delivers a shock every few minutes. It is edited, crafted, and scripted well. The relaxed, naturalistic performances from the actors immediately create a sense of believability that helps when things start getting scary. A deceptively simple yet downright terrifying thrill ride.

I'm no great fan of horror, but I had seen several of the director's short films, including the 2 minute video that led to this one, so I got a trial on the horror channel just to watch this. I've also only used Zoom once, and rarely use video during conference calls, so in that sense I am not quite target audience for this. Despite this it worked very well. The plot sees a group of friends all stuck in their various homes, using Zoom to get together and do a virtual séance for a bit of fun. Sticking with the Zoom format in a sort of 'found-footage' approach for the modern age, it follows the séance as it 'goes wrong'.

At a tight 60 minutes running time, the film doesn't waste a lot of time, but opens nicely so that we are in familiar territory - the technical issues, the glitches, the slightly forced air of 'fun', the people who put in too much effort, and the people who are showing off a bit too obviously. Whether you find that engaging or annoying, it is certainly convincing. From here we move into the bangs and odd occurrences, and things escalate quickly. The cast do a lot of good work in convincing of their fear - and given that mostly we are focused on faces looking at screens, it is an important factor. Mostly the scares are jump scares, but the consistency of them does create its own mood and tension. It is very much a genre piece, with Blair Witch, (Rec.), and endless other horrors in its construct - rather than seem derivative though, it manages to feel like it is drawing on the past to inform the current; it may not date well, but certainly for the current time the use of lockdown, isolations, Zoom chats etc, it does fit and works well.

Best watched like you're on the call - on a laptop in a darkened room.

REVIEW - HOST

As we all know over the past 4 months there have been very few new films because of the pandemic, which in a strange way actually made this film even more enjoyable.

Filmed during lock down and referring to the situation around the current pandemic a shot UK film was released that probably no one has heard of.

A group of teens do an online Zoom session with a medium to try and see what would happen, of course things go wrong when one of them doesn't take it seriously and summons........

Small budget, but hugely enjoyable and even actually made me jump in one place!

Definitely one to watch but just a word of caution, don't watch it on a windy night and leave your Windows open so your doors move on their own, spooky.

Rating 7 out of 10

I saw a trailer for this appearing on the IMDB homepage and I told my wife to look it up! Looks good! The movie was very in the moment as far as the quarantine, and a lot of people can find that relatable. Plenty of jump scares and I was on the edge of my seat! Very entertaining and it kept my interest. The acting looked intense and real. These people looked terrified! Getting down to the point, I thought this movie was great and It's not even an hour, so even If you're a hater and don't like it, it wasn't much time lost. Peace.

This was so much better than I expected.

It's low budget, made under restrictions and all this did for the movie was breed creativity. More films should try it. I think this movie is pretty creepy. When I was watching it I was pretty on edge. I also enjoyed that is was so short, the filmmakers had an idea and made it, it didn't matter to them that it wasn't over the hour and a half mark, they didn't pad it out so the movie is paced so well.