One of Host’s chief accomplishments is its ability to refocus attention on what’s been normalized by COVID-19. In a nod to the big-picture realities of the pandemic, the bored Millennials tempt fate with their nonchalance toward an unseen danger. Nearly all of them are drinking before the spiritualist they hired shows up, they conspire to take a shot every time she utters the phrase astral plane. During the call, the women tease him for his newly grown man-bun and compliment one another on their natural looks. The sole guy of the group hit the quarantine jackpot and is staying at his new girlfriend’s rich parents’ country getaway. There’s the girl who moved in too hastily with a significant other and now seems to regret it another is back at home with a doddering dad. The six friends are representative of a typical gathering of sheltering-in-place Millennials. Read: Why low-budget horror is thriving this summer (The actors even use their real first names.) As the movie begins and the characters join one by one in their comfy clothes and pajamas, the mood is festive and reminiscent of the early days of the coronavirus, when non-work-related Zoom hangouts felt like a novelty. The circumstances of Host’s production lend the film a realism that makes viewers feel as though they themselves are on the call.

Made remotely over 12 weeks during lockdown, Host is about a group of friends who hold a virtual séance over Zoom on July 30, 2020: the same day the movie premiered on the horror streaming service Shudder. The first great entry in a genre already dubbed “ quar-horror,” Host imparts the message that nowhere is safe-especially not the online spaces that Big Tech offers as refuge. But Savage’s film portrays the paranoia that haunts the housebound this summer as a demonic entity unleashed by a Zoom call.

The director Rob Savage sets his movie in a familiar virtual zone-a Zoom session-flipping the script on the current conventional wisdom that online meetings are a safe alternative to in-person gatherings. But the new film Host takes an unexpected approach. During a pandemic, just about any spot where people congregate will do. Every generation has its dark places, settings where horror filmmakers stage the zeitgeist’s fears. The woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland.

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