Your Host
Money supposedly can’t buy happiness, nor can it necessarily buy health, but it can buy you friends after a fashion; his father having inherited a summer house following the suicide of his brother, bankrupted by his wife, James sets up for the weekend with those he regards as his besties even if they don’t like him all that much, he the lord of the manor who expects them to be at his beck and call while they resent him even as they accept his invitation and capitulate to the childish fantasies of his “truth or dare” challenges.
Melissa trying to keep her home for abandoned dogs running, Anita having scrimped and saved for a major operation for her mother which has made little difference to her long-term chances and Matthew the more considerate hanger on, the “beta” to James’ swaggering “alpha” who reminds them at every opportunity that they owe him, a tripod mounted video camera found in the bushes should be a warning that they are being watched rather than a prompt for an argument.
Starring Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Hailey as disgraced former game show anchor turned sadistic killer Barry Miller, Your Host for the evening of physical and mental challenges, games of chance and revelations of wrongdoings of personal failings which will haunt the contestants to their early graves, it is written by Joey Miller and directed in suitably grim fashion by I Will Never Leave You Alone’s D W Medoff, unrelenting, unforgiving and at times creatively unpleasant.
With Ella-Rae Smith as Anita, trying not to make waves and least equipped to deal what is happening, Jamie Flatters as James, a college dropout who believes he is untouchable because he is rich, willing to bargain the others if it guarantees his own safety, David Angland as Matthew, hopelessly doting on Anita, and Joelle Rae as Melissa, refusing to be intimidated by circumstances, it is the setup of Saw with the voyeurism of The Ringmaster and a recollection of the Horrors of the Black Museum, yet Your Host has some surprises.
The games predictably twisted and devious, pitting the contestants against each other with prizes of pain and grievous physical harm the most likely outcome, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot followed by a round of Confessions and of course Incision Decision, the cruelty inflicted on a set of individuals, seemingly at random, perhaps not pure innocents but certainly undeserving of this, but the punishment is not as undirected as presumed.
With the outcome inevitably rigged, Your Host a man who lies but shaped by a system which rewards dishonesty and cruelty, James the living proof that the wealthy can buy their way out of responsibility while Anita knows that being poor has a significant impact on life expectancy, sometimes even carrying a death sentence, as the consequences of their bad choices play out that hers was an act borne of desperation makes it no more forgivable.
The world premiere of Your Host was at FrightFest 2025 on Friday 22nd August
