Face Filters, Fake Facts and Found Footage: The Online Horror of HOST

The year 2020 has certainly gone in a direction even the most nihilistic cynic couldn’t have predicted. A mysterious new virus has flooded most of the civilised world and the whole globe is bearing the brunt of pervasive social distancing, lockdown restrictions and mass infections and deaths. It’s never been a more uncertain time to be alive right now, and everyone is dealing with the crisis in various ways, such as starting old tasks that you never finished, taking up new hobbies, starting new businesses, or in the case of one particular British project, making a horror movie.

Debuting on the VOD service Shudder at the end of July this year, horror fans were thrilled to discover a British found footage film entitled Host. Filmed and set during the COVID-19 pandemic currently in progress, the plot follows a small group of friends who conduct a seance over a Zoom call on their computers, only to trigger terrifying phenomena that threaten their very lives. For a great deal of horror fans, the found footage genre is nothing particularly unique; having humble origins in the mondo genre from the 60s and some notably nasty precursors in Italian shockers like Cannibal Holocaust and Emanuelle in America, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project is commonly accepted as the progenitor of the subgenre, featuring shaky handheld shots, more naturalistic dialogue, unsettling compositions and an unpredictable catalogue of scares. Of course, with the infamous Paranormal Activity in 2007, the genre received the boost it needed to go fully mainstream and we have since been treated to a veritable array of low budget chillers all centred around the terrified wielder of the camera lens.

Following the same footsteps as 2014’s Unfriended, Host takes place entirely on a computer screen, this time in the form of a Zoom call, who had managed to outmaneuver Skype as the dominant video conferencing choice in these uncertain times. Utilised by our main characters, the format of Zoom is one that would be all too familiar with us at the moment, being relegated to strictly online or telephone communications due to social distancing. To this end, there’s a great deal of verisimilitude with Host from the very get-go, especially when watching it on a laptop yourself. Not only is there the overwhelming familiarity with the trusty laptop screen and webcam, but the fact that the film is set within the current coronavirus pandemic with specific references to the lockdown, it adds a touch of realism that is rarely achieved in horror films today.

We’re introduced to our first character Haley in an almost stereotypical instance of voyeuristic undressing via a mirror that we would commonly expect in horror, but it tastefully cuts it short due to our first creepy knocking in the film. These false set-ups are at least a welcome sign that we are about to tuck into a good old-fashioned horror movie. The subsequent introduction of Jemma also feels recognisable, with a conversation occuring on the jaggedy format of a mobile phone as she walks, only to then encounter high-pitched audio interference when connecting through the computer which we’ve all had happen in various forms. Even those moments of ‘can I just send a quick email?’ and the ensuing momentary silence that follows are all incredibly relatable to our own technological experiences. The other characters Emma, Radina and Caroline are quickly introduced afterwards and again, we’re hit with an overwhelming sense of familiarity; not only are there the usual colloquial quips of ‘I love your hair’ and ‘how are we?’, but even with the blissful facial expressions and comfy body language, there’s a real tenderness between the girls established effortlessly that endears you right off the bat. You feel personally involved in their shenanigans, such as their mutual dislike and bitchiness about Jinny, Teddy’s girlfriend. The effect is so powerful that when Teddy and Jinny come suddenly into the call, your eyes widen and your mouth gasps in surprise in tandem with Jemma, almost as though you too are responsible for the trash talk. Sadly for Jinny, this also makes her feel instantly dislikable, especially when she mauls Teddy on camera and spoils the beginning of the seance. Though he is introduced last and is fairly absent for a good portion of the film, Teddy obviously sticks out a little as one of the few male characters in a predominantly female cast. There’s some hint that Caroline is sort of love with him, but it’s played down in a very naturalistic way and rightly so. Still, his presence is clearly enjoyed by the girls so we also naturally gravitate towards his cheeky persona and self-proclaimed ‘twat knot’. The camaraderie is pretty infectious, so much so that when Haley and Jemma begin to clash and as the group becomes steadily more terrified over the course of the film’s runtime, it’s hard not to feel some of that transference of their raw emotion come through.

The palpable sense of relatability however comes from the references to COVID-19: there’s the specific inclusion of ‘oh, you’ve got a cough! Oh, you can’t cough anymore!’, specifically referencing one of the common symptoms of the virus. Caroline’s father is also mentioned as being ignorant of the lockdown rules, which has become a realistic issue occurring between generations and differing political groups. Certainly not everyone in the UK is taking the pandemic seriously and there’s a real skepticism amongst a large proportion of the public about the real dangers of the virus. Not only that, there’s the very real phenomenon of relationships becoming strained under lockdown conditions, with any previously skirtable couple issues now completely unavoidable. This is typified by Radina’s apparent problems with her boyfriend Alan, implied to have only been together with Radina for a relatively short period. There’s also a brief mention of the rule “No PornHub in the dining room”, which can only be referencing the idea that porn usage has certainly increased under lockdown conditions, with PornHub themselves making their Premium services free in certain territories. All in all, there’s a real attention to detail over what is currently happening in our own country-wide predicament and these only allow the audience to be drawn closer into the film’s world.

Even some of the communication styles and character choices provide insight into some aspects of the British experience of the pandemic. The phenomenon of taking a shot of alcohol when an innocuous event happens is quite a realistic reaction to gatherings of young people, who can turn almost anything into a competitive drinking game. The amount of times all of us have indulged in such drinking games to liven up social gatherings instantly recalls memories of our own youth. You end up laughing along with the cast as they clumsily try to disguise their necking of spirits everytime Seylan says the term ‘astral plane’. The false scare of Seylan’s door being knocked also leads to another British colloquialism; playful class mockery, suggesting she is expecting an ‘Ocado’, which is the home delivery service of Waitrose, one of the more prestigious and expensive grocery shops in the UK. Poking fun at class is a pervasive branch of British humour, which is echoed again in the girls’ ogling of Jinny’s home with its rustic aesthetic, large swimming pool and indoor bar.

Of course, this is a horror movie though and once the seance begins to get out of the girls’ control, the film changes tactic and doesn’t really stop with the bombardment of frights. There’s a masterful blend of the expected jump scares, the more subtle sights of bizarre imagery, anticipation of which person on screen is in danger and the tension evoked as the entity randomly attacks the participants in wildy differing methods. Clearly being made by horror fans themselves, the film’s runtime also boasts several references to other horror tropes and franchises. The inclusion of the facial filters, common in most apps and video conferencing programs now, is particularly relevant to the film. Not only are they used in a scare later, they also make nostalgic visual references to other horrors, like the pig mask from Saw worn by Emma or Caroline duplicating footage of herself from earlier a la the twins from The Shining and countless other ‘evil twin’ horrors. A moment where Caroline investigates a noise in her loft is almost a call back to a similar sequence in Paranormal Activity, while her demise is fairly reminiscent of a victim’s death in the similarly themed Unfriended. Emma has a frightening encounter in her living room, possibly the eeriest in the film, where her webcam catches sight of something apparently invisible that triggers the facial filter to activate, bringing up a cherubic theatrical mask that seems to be ripped straight from Alice Sweet Alice. In a moment ripped straight from the hit video game and YouTube sensation Five Nights at Freddy’s, Teddy’s torch explodes, leaving him with only darkness and the haunting melody of his trinket box before his ultimate doom. Finally, the unlucky Emma’s tear-stricken eyes watching all of this madness unfold is hauntingly close to the image of Heather Donahue from the previously mentioned Blair Witch Project, which has been faithfully replicated on Host’s official poster.

Effectively conveying a sense of dread and liberally frightening its viewers with well-crafted scares, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Host has little to say on a deeper level. Yet, even in the seemingly clear-cut depiction of a modern ghost tale, Host has a surprising amount to say. One of the first things that springs to mind is that Seylan mentions that ‘over Zoom’, we’re more vulnerable than we would usually be. Though she is clearly talking about less protection against spirits, it also has an undercurrent of online communication in general, which is frequently purported to impact our mental health much more than we realise. Contrary to logic, it seems the more we communicate online, the further our social isolation is deepened in the real world and despite catchphrases to help us bear the brunt of harsh words in real life, online abuse and bullying is so much more cutting as it has the potential to be ceaseless. Jemma of course is arguably the true antagonist of the film after faking an encounter with ‘Jack’, a made-up child at her old school who she claims hanged himself. While this becomes fairly intrinsic to the plot, it also speaks volumes about the amount of falsehoods perpetrated through online communications and social media today. We live in an age now where facts are frequently branded as ‘fake news’ and actual lies are framed as truths, dependent on the user and their intentions. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that online availability has only deepened discourse, enlarged social divides and forced a widespread polarisation on many issues of economical, ethical, political and social problems. Seylan’s explanation of the spirit as a ‘mask’ for anyone to wear and inhabit is also similar to the digital slander and sensationalised minutia on the internet. Anyone can repurpose a piece of misleading information or meme or image online and share it with an intention to cause distress, to cause joy, to cause laughter, to cause pain, etc. The demonic spirit is almost a metaphor for something innocent which can be corrupted online to go viral, and cause mayhem on the internet. Only in this instance, there are truly frightening consequences that are instantaneous, rather than the sometimes astronomical-scale butterfly effect results that ensue in real life over a number of years, bit by bit.

Host truly is a horror film of our time. While it may have aged significantly once the world is freed from the clutches of coronavirus, Rob Savage’s web-based supernatural shocker will always remind us of this enormously uncertain time period in our history... where we all had to remain indoors, when the shops ran out of toilet roll, when we all had to wear face masks for our protection… and when a seemingly harmless fib spelled certain doom for the participants of a Zoom call.

Read the original article here on Horrified!