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adamwatchesmovies · 4 years

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The Host (2020)

2020 saw two films titled The Host. One's about a Zoom call gone wrong during the COVID-19 Pandemic, the other's so obscure it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. I mistakenly saw the later. Why's it buried? I’m not sure. There’s far worse out there. It’s got unexpected turns that keep things interesting. You might even call it unpredictable… as long as you haven’t seen one of the best-known films of all time.

Fed up with his life, Robert Atkinson (Mike Beckingham) seizes an opportunity. He steals 50,000 pounds from the bank where he works and brings it to a poker table. The winnings will pay his debts and allow him to impress the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, he loses it all. In this moment of desperation, he accepts to smuggle a suitcase for crime lord Lau Hoi Ho (Togo Igawa). The sudden trip to Amsterdam prompts his brother, Steve (Dougie Poynter) to come looking for him. Meanwhile, the woman running the hotel where Robert is staying, Vera (Maryam Hassouni), keeps acting suspiciously...

I tried not to give away too much while giving you a general idea of what the film's about. If I’ve spoiled something, I’m sorry. It shouldn’t matter too much. This movie? It’s not good. I’m not criticizing the protagonist - who is profoundly stupid - because that’s his character. I won’t criticize the wild change of tone which happens halfway through - actually, that’s the best part. I will slam it for being a rip-off of a certain movie everyone’s seen or at least heard of. We’re not talking about a couple of eyebrow-raising similarities either. I mean beat for beat, it’s the same story except more gruesome, which you’d expect since this one was made forty years later. I noticed the similarities early and was able to predict every single reveal and decision from there.

The Host really made me think. I don't someone can have seen “too many movies” to be able to critique them. Being more knowledgeable and researched is always better. There are people who have seen so many movies they’ve become jaded snobs, but that’s another discussion. I tried to determine whether the film would still be bad if you HADN’T seen... that movie. It certainly helps highlight what The Host does well - there’s great suspense during the first act, for instance. It does not, however, mask the terrible ending or make the leaps in logic that appear throughout the last half disappear. Things get crazy but director Andy Newbery knows this. What happens with Nigel Barber and Jun Hui makes sense. That last pill it tries to get us to swallow, that Dun Dun Duuuuun! Ending? No way.

While watching, I quickly categorized The Host as bad. Afterward, I wondered I wasn’t overreacting. What solidified my opinion was the question “who would I recommend it to?” The answer is no one. Instead of The Host, watch the movie it steals from: Psycho. (August 24, 2020)

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