The Host in the Machine

People sitting around talking on film is, generally speaking not very watchable. There are exceptions, some of them even rising to the level of cinematic. My Dinner With Andre (1981) is one of those cinematic experiences. Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio may not be as cinematic, but the frenetic camera work makes watching a guy sitting in a chair quite exhilarating. The Tom Hardy vehicle Locke all set inside his car works quite well. Surprisingly, 2014’s Unfriended, a horror film, works like gangbusters even though it all happens on an online group chat. Talk about static!

So, it is no surprise that Host (2020), another horror film done via group chat also works. The comparison to Unfriended is undeniable, and as far as I’m concerned the first is better than the letter. I’m in the minority among critics in that assessment. Where Unfriended received mixed reviews, Host received universal acclaim.

Host is very good, but it lacks the message that Unfriended offered. Unfriended unabashedly came out against bullying. I’m told Host offers a message of anxiety over social separation but this movie could have made exactly as it is before the pandemic and that anxiety would simply be interpreted as dread over performing a séance online. I was expecting to watch horror movie that delves deep into the mechanisms of anxiety over separation.

Alas! Host does not delve deeply into anxiety issues of social separation. It’s anxiety and dread, of which it has plenty is regarding their ill advised attempt to do a séance on Zoom. I’m not knocking Host at all. It is a thrilling horror movie.

Host doesn’t take long at all to get right into the creepy chills and scary jump scenes. I imagine this is why so many critics like it. A complaint of Unfriended was watching the protagonist constantly clicking on sites online. The complaint being it left a sense of standing over someone’s shoulder while they browse the internet. That is not a problem that Host suffers from. (not a problem in which Host suffers?)

Directed by the unknown Rob Savage, who scripted the film along with Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd, also unknown. Indeed, the closet thing to a known figure in Host would be it’s lead Haley Bishop (Angel Has Fallen). The rest of the cast of a dozen actors are also largely unknown. They’re all pretty great, so big deal that they’re unknown. Many deserve to be known because of Host.

Host is a straight forward journey into malevolent spirits, or at least one malevolent spirit. It is not a long journey before Host reach it’s destination and then the fun really begins. I do take issue with character getting up to investigate the source of ominous noises and taking their laptop with them so we can see what the character sees. More often than not it comes off as contrived rather than a natural decision one would make when investigating scary things that go bump in the night.

There is a common horror trope where characters ill advisedly separate from the group leaving themselves vulnerable to the existential threat they face. It was not the wrong decision to have these characters take their laptop with them in an ironic twist on that trope. It’s just that it’s not so clear Savage understood it was ironic and the screenplay misses the opportunity to drive home the social separation of a group.

Of course, the horror trope of the group separating and leaving themselves vulnerable is very much a part of Host. The group may not have made the decision to separate but while separated they certainly made the decision to invite doom to each individual. Haley Bishop who’s character is also Haley, is not the final girl. Whether or not there actually is a final girl in Host I’ll leave for the viewer to decide.

All the characters, by the way, have the same first name as actors playing them. All except for Teddy, that is. He’s played by Alan Emrys. It’s not clear why this is or if any point is being made by this decision. Host works best in it’s brief 56 minutes when the film is not taken apart and analyzed. Still, some of the films mistakes are too blatant to ignore.

When Emma (Emma Louise Webb) is trying to escape the malevolent spirit, she plunges through the glass of her window and plummets to her death. How do we see this plummet? It’s not clear and we’re left to assume it was captured by an outside security camera. When it’s down to the final two girls, one is attacked by the spirit and in her panic to escape the threat, the very first thing she does it grab the laptop on the table so we can see her looking for the other final girl.

For a film that received universal acclaim you would think those glaring problems weren’t a part of the package. Unfriended did a much better job at following their own inherent rules than Host did. That said, Host is a fun and scary ride. It is well worth watching.