Host (2020)★★★★★

This is a five-star movie for me, but I have to acknowledge it’s perhaps because of a few “superficial” things versus the movie itself. Like, it’s less than an hour long! You could barely call that a feature film! And most of the characters have British accents!

Okay, so Unfriended had the problem that none of the characters were likable. Unfriended: Dark Web did a little better on that front, but the slightly more likable characters did a whole bunch of stupid things.

You know how you fix both of those problems? With a really short movie that doesn’t have time for character development or stupid things! (Small spoilers ahead) I mean, sure, it’s probably stupid to not listen to your spiritual guide and “disrespect the spirits” anyway…but isn’t that something most of us would do? Especially if you don’t believe in “spirits” in the first place?

So while there’s some build-up before the real action starts, it doesn’t feel weighed down with boring backstory, you don’t really get a chance to dislike any of the characters, and they barely have time to react, let alone do too many stupid things.

I really liked this. Sure, there’s some jump scares, but it doesn’t rely on jump scares for the tension and creep factor. I feel like the performances were all believable and realistic. I think the entire thing playing out on Zoom makes total sense, and I love that Rob Savage used some of the restrictions of the pandemic to bring this movie to life.

I mean, who among us hasn’t had a Zoom meeting kick everyone out after 40 minutes because you were logged into a free account?