Superhost (2021)

MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Superhost • Year: 2021 • Country: USA • Director: Brandon Christensen • Main cast: Gracie Gillam, Sara Canning, Osric Chau, Barbara Crampton • Runtime: 83 minutes • Production company: Superchill • TRAILER

The other day I was talking to a friend, a tattooer, about how dependant on the social networks he can get. He basically gets his clients from Instagram, so he must be posting new content daily otherwise he goes down on the feeds and loses visibility. I never thought of that, I always underestimated influencers, Youtubers, and those new media content creators, but I must admit it is crazy and very enslaver how their success and their paycheck depend on the clicks and the views. If you start losing followers and viewers you are gone.

The protagonists of Superhost (2021) are in that group of professionals. They have a video blog about vacationing spots where they visit renting places, share their experiences, interview the hosts, and finally make their reviews. But their channel is losing followers drastically and they find themselves in serious money problems, so they must do a big hit if they want to keep their project alive.

Besides the main horror-thriller side of the story, I found amusing the concept of “going on vacations is their job”. It must sound like a dream job, always visiting amazing places and getting paid for that. But soon it comes a time that you are unable to enjoy your holidays because you can’t disconnect from the video channel and you must create more and more contents. And that fact, which I could call a serious sickness of our modern life, is very well depicted in Superhost (2021), the couple of vloggers can never enjoy the big beautiful house and the astonishing nature paradise because their mind is all the time in the watching stats of their channel.

But let’s leave the social analysis aside and focus on the important thing: the horror behind Superhost (2021). After all, the movie is the new take on the classic crazy-host theme. Still, the narrative is attractive and it has a few enjoyable surprises. The movie is simple but effective. With very limited locations, the nice big house and its forestal surroundings, which give the whole set a sense of abandonment. And that might be great if you are on vacation but it can be deadly if a deranged person is after you to cut you in half.

The power in the movie resides in its simplicity. Only three main characters, plus a short appearance of Barbara Crampton in a small supporting role. A little description of the characters so we can get into their personalities and their preoccupations, but we never get lost on side stories that are not of interest for the goals of the movie. So the whole action can center in the main plot, how the host is removing that naive and happy initial cover to unleash what she really is inside: a psycho murderer.

In the artistic aspects, the couple of vloggers played by Sara Canning and Osric Chau accomplish their duties with efficiency. But the one that devours the show is the innocent-looking host that soon becomes a deadly nightmare. Gracie Gillam makes an outstanding job going psycho like if she was some of rural Harley Quinn, and without her excessive performance this movie won’t be as attractive as it is. And, yet, I bet she had a blast playing the role of Rebecca.

Writer and director Brandon Christensen has built a simple but straightforward and effective horror film. Without flourishment but without flaws. Leaving all complications and rhetorics aside, and focusing on a character’s story that with little manages to express more. A good lesson of an unostentatious horror movie, with a start point that is not the most original one, but an execution filled with surprises. Superhost (2021) is coming out on Shudder on September 2, 2021, and it is a recommendable watch.

RATE: 6/10

IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13309978