Hosts by Jonny Numb

[89 minutes. Unrated. Directors: Adam Leader and Richard Oakes]

Hosts gives an altogether new meaning to the notion of “home invasion horror.”

It’s also a conundrum: spare in its explanation of what is happening (and why), and therefore difficult to offer much detail without giving the whole premise away. In the spirit of keeping this review as spoiler-free as possible, I’ll tread lightly.

Jack (Neal Ward) is a train conductor. His wife, Lucy (Samantha Loxley) is a schoolteacher. It’s Christmas Eve, and they’ve been invited to have dinner with neighbor Michael (Frank Jakeman) and his family: wife Cassie (Jennifer K. Preston), daughter Lauren (Nadia Lamin), and sons Eric (Lee Hunter) and Ben (Buddy Skelton). Before leaving their home, Lucy notices something strange outside. Jack goes to investigate, and events are set into motion. 

Christmas can be a divisive, painful time for those who have suffered loss or aren’t on good terms with their families. It can also be joyous and celebratory in the infectious mood that brings people closer together. The dinner sequence is marked by Jack and Lucy being sidelined for the family’s boisterous crosstalk. Leader and Oakes provide a visual cue at the beginning of this sequence which puts the viewer in a state of nervous dread over how it will conclude.

What Comes Next…

From there, Hosts metamorphoses into something that meets at a crossroads between the fantastical and the earthbound. (Like I said, it’s a conundrum.) There is a magnificent, nerve-racking scene in an attic that works because the performances are utterly convincing (the filmmakers’ extreme close-ups leave no room for inauthenticity). When it comes to the systematic destruction of human life, Leader and Oakes are impishly methodical, but ensure that each death reverberates through the narrative fabric.

Hosts is a tough little movie. Tough in the way Martyrs is tough.

And, not unlike The Honeymoon Phase, there is a sense of duality running through the film: whether lies of omission or something beyond rational explanation, there is a real sense of the unknowable coursing through both. The real terror settles in when our questions don’t have answers.