Hosts (2020) User Reviews

Fundamental disconnect between some reviews and what I saw

[moray-jones · 3/10 · 26 October 2020]

There has definitely been a major marketing push to make this film out to be something it's not.

I'm usually happy to take a low budget into account when watching a film and look for what was done well, but there was very little here to appreciate. Read a five star review and then prepare to be disappointed.

The script was full of waffle and didn't go anywhere - characters stood/sat about giving tedious monolgues supposed to inject meaning.

The directing was mainly static shots that didn't even allow characters to move - a woman tries to direct her boyfriend (after a massive dialogue that should have been left on the cutting room floor) to lights in the garden whilst rooted to the sofa. A family watch a murder, rooted to their chairs.

I liked the actors - though they had to squirm for what felt like hours in every scene to show their terror.

The whole thing should have been done as a short. There's nothing original about the film and there was not enough story to make a film of this length. And not enough money to make it look even that half-decent.

Then the money could have been spent on some polish and the writer would have been forced to consider what the point of the whole thing was.

So bad it's bad!

Half baked

[babysweetstones · 3/10 · 6 October 2020]

Truly unbelievable and bizarre character choices throughout the film. Acting that could end careers. And an underdeveloped idea that ultimately goes nowhere.

Great trailer poor film. TERRIBLE SCRIPT.

[Jester222 · 3/10 · 22 January 2021]

Trailer was great. Really well put together. Shame it's no reflection of the final film. So thumbs up to whoever edited that.

For a film of this budget the acting was good. Some over acting in places but seen far far worse.

What spoilt it the most gor me was the completely unrealistic way people acted to certain scenarios. Which was often unintentionally hilarious, how could these people not react to how someone is behaving!? Fail. Because of this a supposed 'shocking' scene was hugely diluted and became more of a "meh" moment. (Especially with the over the top drama before it happened......intended to make us feel joy and empathy. Again. Failed. The script was quite frankly rubbish and nonsensical. Explained nothing and left you feeling unsatisfied.

The slow drudge of 40+ minutes before anything actually happened had me occasionaly hovering over the remote and ffwd button.

Positives. Some of the make up was enjoyable.

Sadly because of the poor script this film suffers and the hone invasion side plays.....whatever they were!?? It is all a confusing mess.

How bad? Very, very bad.

[leinad23ec · 1/10 · 12 November 2020]

This movie is past ridiculous. Nothing make sense. The dialogue is low effort. You dont care about anyone in this movie. The decisions made by both protagonists and antagonists make no sense, and there is no direction as to where things are going. Are they killing people? possessing them? why? who is spared, who is killed, etc, ...just no sense whatsoever. If you need the bodies to posses them, why kill them or weaken them. If you want to kill them, why don't do it soon enough?, etc, etc, etc. This is a good movie to learn what NOT TO DO as a filmmaker. My guess is, someone had a cool idea of how creepy peoples pupils look when lit up in a dark alley. The plot was made around that 1 drawing or scene.

Hosts deals with a couple that goes to visit a family for dinner either before, during or after Christmas, ...its not important. It just goes down hill from then on. Both in a narrative sense and movie quality.

The acting is bad but, you have to put context on the actors. They were not given enough to even work with, so I honestly don't know if it was their fault or the script. But I highly blame the script/Screenwriters.

Plot is completely non existent, I would say. It starts with a mysterious possession, that is kept mysterious throughout the movie, without rhyme or reason. The movie finishes and you have no idea what has happened, or why!

But I think the worst part of this movie are motivations and actions throughout:

----SPOILERS AHEAD---- Where do these lights come?, and then it turns out is a video signal that possesses the victims via a tv screen. That's all you will know about the bad "guys". A woman's head is smashed in a dinner christmas by the 2 strangers that are not eating and just staring blankly throughout the whole dinner, but that I assume is just "normal" where they live. Then the "demons" decide to torture, but not kill their hostages/victims, because.... reasons. A protagonist(which is never stablished who really is the main protagonist here) gets a cell phone and decides to call her fiancée, not the police(that would be too easy), and explain to him in detail for like 5 minutes of dialogue and crying about what happened in her house, ...oh the horror. And then she is taken upstairs to fake shot her whiny brother(adult) in his face(with an unloaded shotgun). Her father is locked in his room, and cant get out because, for convenience sake, all the doors in the house can only be opened from the hall, ...nope, not from inside the room(fire safety reasons? I assume or they bought an old mental asylum and decided to live in there). And in this houses, I am assuming the windows are bulletproof, because no one tries to escape through the blatantly big windows in this 1 floor home. When she fails to kill her brother, shes is dragged down again from the attic to the ........some room, that has a TV. And oh, these demons are so slick, they can slip under your bed undetected but they cant her or see a tied grown woman that escapes in front of their faces. And you are finally, ..like "well s***'s about to get real!", She escapes and runs, and runs through the forest that is more lit than a stadium in superbowl, and keeps running and finally stops, outside of the house where the murderers where, tired, huggin a tree in desperation. And she ends up 10 feet away from the main door of the house where family is kept. What? She is standing in full blown light, right outside the door where her mom was killed and her family is being tortured. What does she do next? why, wait of course! For like 10 more minutes just there. Finally the devils catch up with her which turns out, are way more than just the 2 in her house. blah blah blah, she gets her brother or son out of the house, just to find that there will be "Hosts 2: the AirBNB revenge" because those lights are all over the sky.

You knwo when people say "worst movie I've ever seen". I always hated that, but I think I found mine

[tudorgadalean · 2/10 · 12 November 2020]

I love horror movies, and I think that, with only a few exceptions, I haven't watched a non-horror film for 3 years. Some of them were absolutely tremendous, some of them were decent and others were quite poor.

But none of them was absolute garbage. Well, Hosts it is.

The directing, writing, dialogue, cinematography, plot, sound mixing are disgustingly bad. You are sitting in front of your TV hoping that something will happen that will reedem this movie. Maybe one coherent plot point, maybe a decent piece of writing, maybe a good shot. Anything, really. It never happens.

I saw some people bashing the acting, but with this kind of incredibly idiotic directing and writing, you can't really blame them. The had absolutely nothing to work with.

The directors, writers and producers should be ashamed of themselves. In this times, when the movie industry is crashing and talented directors are scraping for a minimal budget, they just insult them by making this sorry excuse of a film.

The fact that this has 5.6 (actually a decent rating for a horror movie) is an absolute joke. If you're thinking of paying money for this, don't, just don't. Just drink them away or gamble.

2* just because I feel bad for the actors. Hope this doesn't end their careers.

If I could give it 0 star, I would

[zoeheeley · 1/10 · 30 November 2020]

It has an amateur feel to it. A bit like a high school play. It's slow and boring. It's over the top in places just to try and get the shock factor. Story line is silly and nothing is explained. Ending is very disappointing and totally what I predicted. It's like watching Eastenders but far less entertaining. I wish other reviews would be more realistic as I wouldn't have wasted my time with this.

Creepy and disgusting, plot holes galore

[movie_ape · 5/10 · 24 October 2020]

If you want some shock horror with a house invasion style, then go ahead.

Some scenes are well shot and acting is pretty good from the cast; particularly Samantha Loxley. The scare factor was there but it was mostly gore that turned me away.

In any case there were plot holes and things that didn't add up in what little story there was. So if you want to watch over an hour of gore, violence, and people crying a lot without much story I guess this is for you.

In the end it was a pretty average showing, I was expecting more from the demonic possession angle; some more lore or plot would have been welcome to flesh this out into something really good.

5/10 average story with excellent and horrifying visuals.

Waste of time

[chrisgilmer · 1/10 · 3 October 2020]

Don't be fooled by the 10 STAR ratings. What a load of manure. I wasted 48 minutes of the time I have left on this earth to watch this tripe. The acting was horrible. Even after 48 minutes I still had no clue what was going on. I think I'd rather have Coranavirus than sit through the remainder of this movie. For those of you who decide to watch this, I won't "ruin" the first 48 minutes by telling you what happens.

Excellent start! Falls apart by the end

[TVTimdb · 6/10 · 28 March 2021]

If you like the experience of watching a horror movie, then you'll enjoy the watch. The tension and violence in the first scene (you'll know witch) and the mystery throughout is fantastic. The problem seems to be they didn't complete the thought. What are these things? There are plenty of hints throughout, and the impression that if you knew the Bible front to back maybe this would make sense. But I don't think so. By the end I'm left with the impression that the filmmakers didn't have the complete picture thought through. I like a film that I as the viewer need to figure out, but I'm not sure there's anything substantial or satisfying to figure out here.

Acting was great! I don't know what a lot of these other reviewers are talking about.

Had Promise but Lacked Substance

[ryan_sy · 5/10 · 26 October 2020]

The movie started off strong and the "possessed" characters were creepy. However, there wasnt much of a story and the movie devolved into a confusing violence fest with no real substance. I was indifferent to the family and having violence for the sake of violence didnt help the plot. If there was more of a story, then the scares would have been more effective.

I think this could have been better with a bit more plot and better character dialogue and development. Bonus points for the ominous music score and a few decent scares.

An average movie that serves it's purpose when you have nothing better to watch

[5/10]

Ferocious Horror

[malevolentfilmsllc · 10/10 · 3 October 2020]

I really feel this may be on of the most ferocious horror movies of the year. The acting if first rate, the story feels a little familiar in that it's sort of home invasion movie, but like most interesting indies they make it seem new. This movie is terrifying and there is one scene that is going to blow your mind. It's little indie gem that I feel I've unearthed.......definitely recommend!

Allegory

[alexakesson · 7/10 · 3 October 2020]

Not all are welcome in the Father's house. Some are cast out and lurk in the darkness waiting for revenge. Good and bloody.

Shocking

[mancity-67729 · 1/10 · 16 October 2020]

Absolutely shocking film. Never got going. People running round with light bulbs in their mouths. Just typical of 2020 with the way it's all gone. I'm %100 sure this has got to be the worst film I have ever seen. Some of the effects look like they have been drawn up by a Nokia 3310....

Oof. Does nothing right...

[jharring1997 · 1/10 · 18 March 2021]

Man this is a weak movie. Plot is tissue paper thin, acting is mediocre at best but wow, the audio mixing is truly terrible. I don't know how they made literally every line sound distractingly dubbed but they did. Think the first dialogue in Birdemic but it's like that the whole movie.

Middle of the road indie bloodbath

[youngcollind · 4/10 · 30 August 2021]

Noticeably low budget from the get go, but it kept things simple to not overreach it's means. There is a great build up to the first kill that had me literally laughing out loud, so kudos on that. Afterwards, things fall into a pretty banal "run-kill-repeat" rhythm that offers some run of the mill violence, but little else. Some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy, and there aren't many surprises, but it's all fairly acceptable by b-movie standards, just don't ask too much of it. Truth be told, it took me three tries to make it to the end as I kept falling asleep, but I did keep putting it on pretty late, so that one might be on me.

"Favors"

[Grim_Horror · 1/10 · 22 January 2021]

I saw this climbing the charts on a few ratings boards and being rated on a absolute flip flop basis of 10/10 or 1/10, which as you are thinking too is weird right? so I thought id check it out and oh boy! it seems people who know the filmmakers and their network circles have been not only disingenuous by writing overly positive reviews to support their friends but what they don't realize it gave these film makers delusions of success when they have in fact made a terribly paced and written horror film that as it stands will get torn apart by people who don't have this bias.

Unique and Unsettling

[HorrorVision · 5/10 · 3 October 2020]

So, it's not the greatest film you'll ever see, however HOSTS will keep you entertained and keep you guessing. Another review of this film stated the acting was poor, but in my opinion, most performances were fantastic considering the script. In saying that too, the story was unique and creative.

I popped in on, sort of as a background movie while I was working, and got sucked right in. I'd recommend to any horror fan.

You know it's rigged whe in gets an overall 5.1 !

[thomasrobbins · 1/10 · 19 February 2021]

Worthless trash. Like a bad dream except the monologuing would send me out of REM into a coma. HOW can this get a 5.1? I have seen cheap Indie horror that received a 4.3 or so, but was at least somewhat interesting. Who wrote it? Who edited it, some mournful psychopath who is torn between killing people by their endless drivel and incredibly fake whimpering (you have to establish a character before we feel for them good grief.)..... or smashing in heads.

Disturbingly horrible, I would rather have a fever dream.

An indy Horror film made with more heart & skill than many of the majors

[azanti0029 · 7/10 · 7 October 2020]

It's Welcome to Dinner meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers with new British Indy horror Hosts and this film deserves your time - Young Couple Jack (Neal Ward) & Lauren (Nadia Lamin) are looking forward to sharing their Christmas Dinner with their local friendly neighbours, the family who live close by, consisting of Mum and Dad (Frank Jakeman & Jennifer Preston) Sons Eric & Ben (Lee Hunter & Buddy Skelton) and daughter Cassie (Samantha Loxley) but when some strange lights are seen in the couples garden and Mum has some heavy news to break to the family, you just know things are going to go from Turkey to Tits Up in a matter of a heartbeat over the Yorkshire Pudding.

I won't say any more about the story itself, as we don't want to get into spoilers here.

HOSTS began its life as an on-line Crowd Funding Campaign, via the Youtube channel of its creators, and while it might not be the next Saw of the Horror Genre (Nor should it need to be) it's an extremely well made, tightly directed, film with a number of well thought out camera shots and clever design concepts.

Any indy film without exception always has a more challenging road from script to screen than most and the team behind this movie put it out on line for all to see, so you could follow their journey from day one. While films must always be ultimately reviewed on the final result on the screen (because ultimately that's all your viewing audience cares about) the team of Oakes and Leader are among a small number of the new generation of film-makers, to have made their journey of getting this film out there so transparent. So even if I hated the film, which I didn't, I still wouldn't be dishing out some bell end of a one star review.

HOSTS, yes, was made on a tiny budget, (I think it was 20k?) and is shot around incredible limitations, but the fact that up and coming talents and entertaining comedy duo Leader & Oakes (Check out their amusing and informative channel Dark Fable Media on Youtube) have been able to deliver with a film this polished is a testament to their creativity, passion, drive and skill behind the camera. Few would dare to try such an enterprise with so few resources and such a punishing and extremely short shooting window, let alone those who thoughtlessly would see fit to dismissively give this film a one day star review. (Doing so makes those reviews have absolutely no value and they should be ignored and only underscores the fact that these reviewers have no concept of what makes the genre of horror great in the first place.)

I'm not going to shower the film with endless false praise because it's not a movie without some issues. While occasionally the lack of an adequate budget betrays itself and some moments of the story do jar briefly, the many strengths of the film allow these, for the most part, to be overlooked.The acting is a mixed bag, but all the roles are competently played, with some notable stand out performances (Especially from Samantha Loxley & Buddy Skelton) But from the creepy opening, you know this film will be a little bit different and deliver in the right boxes for it's well worn genre. It's not a film for the faint hearted and probably not one to have on during Christmas Dinner either and what you make of the ending, will depend on how you like to digest your entertainment at the end of your meal.

Oakes and Leader are both self taught at their trade and you can see their numerous informative videos regarding film making on their channel, and they have put everything they've learned to good use here. As a first outing, this product is impressive and they should, quite rightly, be proud and pleased with the result and its well deserving of distribution the film had been searching for. .

Overall, this is a solid indy film, made by a duo of determined and extremely talented filmmakers, who instead of procrastinating from the sofa, got up and made their first feature, allowed us to follow their journey and produced a very worthy product. It would appear many horror critics agree with my assessment, so fans of the genre, check out this film out and STUDIOS, give these guys a shot at something with the proper financial support they deserve. For even the smallest but decent budget I am certain they will deliver an absolute corker for the normally difficult second album. Recommended.

Awful Acting and Plot

[davey184 · 1/10 · 3 October 2020]

Unbelievably bad acting. Very poor story line. Directors and writers need to count this as a loss of their possible talent, improve and move on. The actors/actresses will never make it big unless they take more lessons. It was like watching a Junior school play in every way.

A wickedly smart, bloody, and brutal invasion horror!

[brandingiron_prod · 9/10 · 4 October 2020]

Well done to the cast and crew. Excellent work across the board. Nick and Samantha are phenomenal as the guests from Hell and the dynamics between the cast members are strong and believable.

From the first hammer stroke to the last swing of a knife, horror fans will truly enjoy this well-acted and well-crafted flick!

Can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Pffft

[davetrubody · 25 October 2020]

Biggest load of rubbish ever .typical british film , flooded with music from start to finish and acting from two or three like a 7 year old would .. who ever wrote directed and recruited such rubbish .. bizarre trash .

It's a bit like Marmite.

[pabman-54338 · 7/10 · 14 October 2020]

As you can tell by the huge spread in scores for this movie, you will either love this or hate it.

For myself, I enjoyed it a lot and here is why.

This movie is beautifully shot, creepy as hell and has some seriously extreme violence thy I was not expecting.

The initial 25 minutes sets the scene and for me was a little slow however once the neighbours arrive the movie picks up fast with lots of tension and gore. I am sure everyone who watches this film will remember that one scene that just hits you out of nowhere with glorious brutal violence.

I personally found the acting to be pretty decent with excellent performances by the Dad and the female neighbour.

While not perfect, this movie is one of the best horrors I have seen in a while and if the $25k budget is true then this is an outstanding effort.

Overall I give it a 7. Enjoyable with room for improvement

I hope to see more from these debut directors and next time with a decent budget.

Could do better

[mattcording · 2/10 · 18 January 2021]

I'm presuming this was a high school project? Stilted acting, a plot with more holes than a colander

Poor scenario

[pooyashahryar · 4/10 · 16 October 2020]

Poor scenario and also too much cliche acts from actors, not interested