Host

Good movie

okay okay here we go

I'm no great fan of horror, but I had seen several of the director's short films, including the 2 minute video that led to this one, so I got a trial on the horror channel just to watch this. I've also only used Zoom once, and rarely use video during conference calls, so in that sense I am not quite target audience for this. Despite this it worked very well. The plot sees a group of friends all stuck in their various homes, using Zoom to get together and do a virtual séance for a bit of fun. Sticking with the Zoom format in a sort of 'found-footage' approach for the modern age, it follows the séance as it 'goes wrong'. At a tight 60 minutes running time, the film doesn't waste a lot of time, but opens nicely so that we are in familiar territory - the technical issues, the glitches, the slightly forced air of 'fun', the people who put in too much effort, and the people who are showing off a bit too obviously. Whether you find that engaging or annoying, it is certainly convincing. From here we move into the bangs and odd occurrences, and things escalate quickly. The cast do a lot of good work in convincing of their fear - and given that mostly we are focused on faces looking at screens, it is an important factor. Mostly the scares are jump scares, but the consistency of them does create its own mood and tension. It is very much a genre piece, with Blair Witch, (Rec.), and endless other horrors in its construct - rather than seem derivative though, it manages to feel like it is drawing on the past to inform the current; it may not date well, but certainly for the current time the use of lockdown, isolations, Zoom chats etc, it does fit and works well. Best watched like you're on the call - on a laptop in a darkened room.

I don't think I've ever been driven to write a review before but I had to for this. Giving it 10/10 purely because it's the first horror film to actual scare me in years. Cast are great, effects are as good as they need to be, and it's only 57 minutes which is refreshing. Obviously if you don't like found footage style horror you're not going to like this but if you do you're in for a treat. And of course there's some questionable decisions by the characters but it's a horror film, get over it.

I saw a trailer for this appearing on the IMDB homepage and I told my wife to look it up! Looks good! The movie was very in the moment as far as the quarantine, and a lot of people can find that relatable. Plenty of jump scares and I was on the edge of my seat! Very entertaining and it kept my interest. The acting looked intense and real. These people looked terrified! Getting down to the point, I thought this movie was great and It's not even an hour, so even If you're a hater and don't like it, it wasn't much time lost. Peace.

Unoriginal rubbish. I can only suspect the people who have given this good reviews are friends of the cast or film makers. I've had more entertainment watching hair dry. Acting could be worse I suppose but besides that this film has absolutely nothing going for it. Its less than an hour and its still fifty minutes longer than it needs to be.

It's unfortunately a little bit dull until the last 20 minutes. Things kick into gear with a particularly well-executed (and properly set up!) jump scare, and then escalate accordingly. Even then, the finale isn't that much more impressive than the final act in your average paranormal horror movie, but the ZOOM stuff does become a bit more than a gimmick at that point, with some clever ways to deliver scares in a slightly new way. Until then though, it's a bit dull, with characters + a set up and middle third that feel like a pretty standard horror movie. Still, it delivers some pretty decent spoopiness in just under an hour, so I'd say it's worth a watch for horror fans.

For a modern film in the 'jumpscare' sub-genre, it is amazing that all of the scares are the same tired cliches. Sometimes the same gag is employed in back-to-back scenes. Baffling. We are introduced to a group of friends in a Zoom call, all of 'em forgettable non-characters. They're just there. They engage in a seance (there is no artistry to this - it is them literally asking 'is there anybody there' next to a candle) and then a demon shows up. Any questions this may raise go unanswered. A spooky spook is gonna get 'em. That's it. I could forgive this extreme streamlining of plot, narrative, character and story if we were taken on a rollercoaster ride. But no. It's slow and often tedious. Not even the short runtime can hide this fact. Very little happens and when it does, you've seen it before. I'm not impressed by loud noises and 2-frame inserts of 'scary' faces. Horror is a genre with so much to offer. This sort of movie makes me wonder if the filmmakers actually like horror. I doubt it. I think this was made for cynical reasons. Nobody was burning to tell this story. The production is poor, which can be forgiven for the lockdown circumstances in which it was made, but that means we also lose out on costume, lighting, set design, score, etc. The writing is too scant to even criticize. The acting is barely present, with the exception of Seylan Baxter as the medium, who is the only actor that manages to present herself like a real person. She's good, and represents my one star.

Unwatchable, horrible, cheap and fake reviews. Recorded with a webcam in a video conferencing format with 5 "chicks" on their computers. Nothing interesting.

Good movie!