Review: HOST

Have you seen Unfriended? Well, you've seen this ... almost

Instead of comparing Host to too much more I'm going to put it into another context. Bocaccio's The Decameron is a book of tales which range from bawdy to ethical set in a castle high above the common herd who are dying of the plague. Haley and her friends host a zoom meeting on what was once a weekend night but this time with a medium. No one particularly believes; there's even a strong suggestion that it's all for laughs. One of them coughs which leads to a good joking observation. This is not a group of chums Skype-ing on a lazy school night. However lightly they are taking the notion of an online seance (and what better means to address a plague) a misstep by one of them builds, element by element, into a kind of Zoomed Walpurgisnacht.

So, the we're ok, we're still us despite the virus blowing around outside the window, all that assumption of the old normal is attacked from within. The pieces of traditional horror are on clear display (sometimes too much as a series of tedious references to other found footage icons fill the bank of screens) and given good room to play. There is more than a little commentary on the casualness of the attitude to the technology which has its own consequences.

Does it go much deeper than a series of kills? Not really but the trouble starts when someone doesn't take the occasion seriously enough and resorts to a lie about it. If you've so far avoided the efforts of shit stirrers, mask-refusing cretins babbling about imagined legal charters, COVID-19 deniers and more and worse then count yourself and lucky as well as uninformed. The victims here are not necessarily part of those tribes and some simply don't deserve their fate. You could say exactly the same about those infected by the negligence of others. That's why this is not just a retread of Unfriended. That film is similarly unaffected by this as it remains a solid fable of interpersonal atrocity and the currency of gossip. Host reminds us of our time of plague using its chief tool of social interaction. It does this so powerfully that the inventiveness of that might be left assumed.

It is a story of, from and still in our times. It's also bloody scary when it has to be and that's always a boon. At fifty-seven minutes, what are you waiting for?

Showing on Shudder. Hey, Shudder. we need our
apps!