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HOST is an unusual film for a few reasons. it was filmed during the pandemic using zoom, the group meeting app, with the cast and crew setting up their own cameras, lighting, and stunts. it also clocks in at a merciful 56 minutes. on top of all of that, it has a rare 100% rating on Rottentomatoes.com.
i had heard about the movie last year and thought it sounded interesting. for a pandemic period piece, it's riveting and original. for a film shot on a zoom app, it's outstanding. basically a group of friends start a seance online (as one does) and things go horribly wrong.
i enjoyed the scares and the concept quite a bit, but a couple things bugged me and took me out of the magic. for one, zoom meetings are inherently clumsy engagements where people invariably talk over one another and then have to stop and try to figure out who talks next and what was said. the start of the movie is a lot like that, chatty girls yapping and being funny, and grandpa steve found it grating. thankfully the plot moved along quickly.
my other beef, and probably my single biggest problem with HOST, was the webcam action. if someone heard noises in the attic during a zoom meeting, not one single person on earth would carry their stupid laptop up a ladder, facing away from them. this happens multiple times in the movie, i guess because it has to, otherwise you wouldn't see what was happening. typically when i'm panicking and fleeing a demonic entity, i don't pick up my laptop, swing it around and point it at what i'm trying to escape. even at the end, a guy is running for his life away from his house... carrying his laptop with the webcam facing forward. how badass is his wifi signal? pretty badass!
those annoyances aside, i think you should watch this movie and savor the frights when they arrive. i can't quite understand anyone giving HOST a 100% rating, much less EVERY reviewer on RT. i was going to give it 7 demonic entities on a VPN, but it gets a extra bump for being only 56 minutes long, for an overall rating of 8 hysterical zoomers running with laptops out of 10.
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