Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.0

Host Blu-ray Movie Review

Astral plain.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III February 10, 2021

Well, this is where we're at now: "A Pandemic-era Poltergeist", says Empire magazine. Low-budget horror has entered the never-ending realm of face masks, lounge pants, contactless delivery, and endless Zoom calls... as if we needed another reason to be scared. But I get it -- restless indie filmmakers need to do something during quarantine besides procrastinate and, to that end, Rob Savage's Host is commendable for even existing. And it's probably more ambitious than anything I've done during the past year. But then the other part of my brain kicks in, and suddenly I remember that spending my free time staring at someone's poorly-lit living room isn't ideal escapist entertainment.

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Anyway, the short story goes like this: five young women -- Hayley, Jemma, Emma, Radina, and Caroline -- and their guy pal Teddy hold weekly Zoom calls to keep in touch, and this week they've decided to spice it up by hiring a medium named Seylan to conduct her first-ever "virtual séance". Everything's going well enough, except Teddy gets pulled off the call by his domineering girlfriend and Radina isn't taking it seriously. She even whips up fake tears while describing a fictitious classmate who hung himself years earlier... and when she finally admits the truth, Seylan informs Radina that "disrespecting the spirits" like that will bring her story to life. It's not long before all Hell breaks loose and the girls, one by one, are stalked by the invisible being and their Zoom room ends up using a lot less bandwidth.

As far as premises go, Host offers nothing more than a painfully standard setup but at least creatively pastes it onto a new format, having a little fun in its new sandbox by using frozen screens, choppy video, heavy shadows, and custom backgrounds to its advantage. The visual format, much like last year's Spree, helps add to its overall effectiveness too while serving up a few clever Easter eggs in the process. Even the characters and performances, clichéd as they are for the genre, are fine. But scare-wise, Host just doesn't deliver the goods: I smirked a lot more than I jumped, finished it up 30 minutes before bedtime, and slept like a rock. I'll admit that Ouija board stories have always felt more silly than scary... so if they're your guilty pleasure, Host might play a little better. But there are other problems too: the opening is dreadfully slow and the total runtime barely cracks 50 minutes (see below), making this feel more like a drawn-out short film than a sleek, feature-length production. All told, Host is underwhelming and it felt like the wrong movie to watch while I'm still working from home and abstaining from family visits. Why capture this zeitgeist?

Those who have already seen Host via streaming may have noticed this Blu-ray edition from RLJ features a slightly longer runtime (65 minutes, as opposed to 56), with the back cover advertising it as an "Extended Cut edition". This is flat-out deceptive: instead of new scenes added during the film, a roundtable Zoom call with Host's creative team just plays after the end credits. It's described as their own practice séance that helped prepare everyone for the real thing, complete with a couple of mild spook-out moments that are less convincing than those seen during the main feature. On the other hand, die-hard fans can at least preserve the "original experience" by just stopping it early.

Host Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

It's almost impossibly to assign an accurate visual rating to a low-budget movie that looks terrible by design but has been preserved perfectly on Blu-ray. Host is basically a long Zoom call mostly recorded through webcams, which vary in quality and capture locations lit as well as your stoner pal's living room. Native compression artifacts, softness, frozen frames, blooming, aliasing, macroblocking, and poor shadow detail -- these all run rampant during the movie, standing in sharp contrast to the relatively crisp interface that frames every shot and occasionally features pop-up messages too. That's the dead giveaway that this 1080p transfer offers a decent visual presentation of a film that will never look good, which is fine with me. So if you've been on your fair share of video chats lately, basically expect that.

Host Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ditto goes for the DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix which, aside from a few added droning noises and other "sweetened" effects, mostly plays it straight with a two-channel experience you'd expect from this kind of subject matter. Dialogue and background effects aren't always crisp, of course, occasionally sounding garbled or heavily distorted by design but they're intelligible when the situation demands it. Channel separation is more apparent when the action heats up, and there's basically nothing in the way of true panning effects... but again, that's fine under the circumstances. While an optional full-blooded 5.1 mix would have been interesting, what's here gets the job done and nothing more.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are provided during the film and all applicable bonus features.

Host Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with reversible artwork with a slipcover and promotional insert. The extras are limited in number but run fairly long, even though most of them aren't terribly interesting.

• Behind the Scenes of Host (34:19) - Director / co-writer Rob Savage, executive producer / co-writer Jed Shepherd, co-writer Jemma Hurley, producer Douglas Cox, several key cast members, and other participants talk about the movie's inception, favorite moments, Zoom staff meetings, working during lockdown, staging a practice "virtual séance", stunt work, on-set medics, special effects and other illusions, and more.

• Séance With the Cast and Crew (1:24:46) - Similar to the post-movie roundtable, this séance (held on August 14, 2020) was conducted by exorcist RH Stavis and hosted by Jacob Hall of Slashfilm. Played straight rather than for scares, it ultimately feels more like a group interview than a spiritual detour.

• Bloody Disgusting Presents "The Boo Crew" Podcast (21:31) - This episode of the popular podcast, hosted by Lauren and Trevor Shand with Leone D'Antonio, features Host's Rob Savage and Jed Shepherd.

Host Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While I might have fallen for Rob Savage's Host during its original release last July -- you know, when we weren't all completely sick of Zoom meetings and being stuck indoors -- it no longer feels like an experience I want to bother with. The film earns a few points for dragging its regular premise into relatively new territory (and for maintaining its visual commitment), but this does nothing to make it a fundamentally better production. Not counting the pointless "Extended Cut", RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray at least offers fans a pretty decent home video package: the A/V presentation does what it can with the limited source material and the bonus features fit in pretty well too. I still can't recommend this thing as a blind buy, but anyone who's already seen and enjoyed Host will get their money's worth.