Host (2020) - Movie Review

At last, after many months of jealously hearing from friends about how cool Shudder is, it has finally made it to Australian screens. That means all manner of exclusive content on the service is now open for reviews, so I might get around to reviewing Kuso or One Cut Of The Dead at some point. But for now, though, we’ve got something very special to look at. A film that I believe will go down as the film of 2020, both because of how much of a snapshot it is of this point in history, and because it’s just that fucking brilliant as a film all on its own.

Unfriended (2015) - Movie Review

While The Blair Witch Project might be the first proper mainstream example of the found footage genre, it was Paranormal Activity that revived the genre as it stands today and, to be fair, there’s a lot that can work about a found footage movie. The ‘natural’ camera work that brings believability to the film, the low-fi aesthetic that can hide weaker special effects, not to mention being cheap as chips to make; it can be really effective, especially with horror films because that believability can make the scares hit that much harder. Problem is, however, that the majority of found footage films play it way too safe and just follow the same formula laid down for them by Blair Witch and the PA series, often leading to rather embarrassing results like the horrendous Chernobyl Diaries. Sure, there are some films that take the format in interesting directions: Cloverfield used it to make a decent monster movie and Chronicle had the simple act of filming everything add emotional weight to the main character’s story. But, for the most part, it’s pretty much same-old, same-old. So, when I saw the trailer for this and it looked like someone was going to try something different (a serious rarity these days for film in general), I just had to check it out. But is it really that original? This is Unfriended… and it already loses points for the stupid title.