It seems like there’s been a spate of found footage/Zoom-based horror movies, enough to qualify as its own sub-genre, although I can’t actually think of many besides Unfriended. The consensus seems to be that Host from 2020, directed by Rob Savage, is the best one.
I have no reason to doubt that, because I watched it last night, and I loved it. I saw it on Shudder, sitting at my desk, via a web browser, which I’m assuming is the best possible way to see it short of actually being in the middle of the COVID lockdowns. And I did spend much of the runtime anxiously glancing over my shoulder, to make sure I didn’t hear something, and that no one was sneaking up behind me.
A testament to how well the movie works: I actually watched a recap of this movie on the Dead Meat YouTube channel, so I was technically spoiled for everything, but it still completely worked for me. I’m pretty sure that I watched the recap, appropriately, while I was stuck in an AirBnb recovering from COVID with nothing to do except watch YouTube. So it’s likely that a combination of mainlining horror recaps plus my general brain fog meant that I’d forgotten everything except “this is the good one.”
A huge part of what makes it work so well is how thoroughly they commit to the bit. The entire movie is presented via the Zoom interface1Or at least a very faithful and convincing facsimile, from the first moment through the end credits. Apparently, this was entirely filmed during lockdown, so the need for the cast to be physically distant was fully incorporated into the production. They each filmed their parts from a separate location, with a bare-bones team at each site handling any make-up or practical effects work.
Which makes it even more impressive, since it’s clearly not a super-high budget production, but there are several moments where it’s clear that they didn’t cut corners. Part of the charm is that you expect it to be an amateurish, let’s get the gang together to make a movie! type of thing, and it is until the moments when it’s suddenly not.
The most memorable and effective moments come from taking all of the goofy aspects of Zoom calls, and then building on that and removing them from their context to make them horrific. In particular, face filters, and the trick of filming a video of yourself in your room and then using it as a looping video backdrop. It’s genuinely chilling, seeing the same mundane video play out over and over again as horrifying stuff is happening.
Almost all of the scares are jump scares, but that feels to me like a stylish choice more than a cop-out; it’s a bunch of friends getting together to tell each other scary stories in the dark. But it gets a surprising amount of poignance via the selfies that we use as our account photos on the platform. There’s a flash of a still photo of each person right as they’re dropped from the call, like in a Charlie Brown spelling bee, and the last thing you see is a memory of one of their happiest or silliest moments.
I especially liked how Zoom’s time limit on free calls is integrated into the short runtime of the movie (it’s under an hour). It cleverly turns the movie’s final scene into a tense countdown, almost like the final act of Aliens, as in the upper-left corner of the screen, you see a literal display of time running out.
A lot of the movie depends on the performances of the cast, and they’re all really good. Any hints of performance are accounted for, by the fact that everybody in the movie knows that they’re on camera. They have a good rapport, and it’s fun to watch them all chatting as they’re setting up, gossiping about people who aren’t yet on-screen and then acting friendly right at the moment they sign on. So much of the exposition is handled by the simple fact that they’ve all got their names displayed on screen. (The actors also all used their real names for their characters). You can quickly tell who are the close friends vs who are the casual ones, who’s got a crush on who, and so on, and it all seems to come through naturally. There’s little doubt that these people have all known each other for years.
Which is the last thing that I really like about Host, which I only found out after the fact. Looking through director Rob Savage’s filmography, I saw that in addition to the upcoming big studio production Other Mommy, he’s made several other more independent horror movies of various lengths, including Dashcam. And you see the same names pop up over and over again in the cast list; Dashcam is largely the same people as Host now playing different characters. It has the feeling of a genuine repertory troupe, cementing the idea that these people all really like each other and like making movies together.
Host is a solid, short, spooky ghost story full of clever ideas, and it succeeds entirely based on the commitment of its execution. It teaches you not to hire mediums on Fiverr, and also that independent filmmakers might just be the saviors of cinema. Or if not cinema, then at least good old-fashioned movie-making.
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