YOUR HOST (2025)

3 stars

World Premiere at FrightFest 2025 on 22nd August

YOUR HOST sets its stall from the opening – A video camera. ‘Congratulations Jake. You are our winner’. Except it doesn’t look like it, as he has a bloodied face and has a metal brace round his neck. And he is strapped up. Final round – pick a box … if he pulls the right string he gets to go home. We are witnessing some kind of sick game show.

He is taunted by the unseen host – unluckily for Jake the box he picks has a shotgun in it which splatters him against the back wall. I guess we are in SAW style territory!

A group of friends arrive at a large summerhouse. Anita (Ella Rae-Smith, Into the Badlands), Matthew (David Angland, Masters of the Air), Melissa (Joelle Rae, Get Even) and James (Jamie Flatters, Avatar – the Way of Water). Time to party, play games, drink. The usual.

One night there is a noise outside. James goes to check it out and Melissa joins him. They find a large video camera on a tripod which they bring in. There are already tensions in the group. Especially between James and Anita. Granted, James is a bit of a dick, but his parents are rich and it’s their summerhouse.

We get some back story to the characters – especially Anita who has been working hard to pay for her Mum’s surgery

Meanwhile somebody else is there… watching it seems. It isn’t long before the quartet have been drugged and wake up chained to a wall by their necks and with several video cameras pointed at them. They are greeted by a man in a strange mask, who we later learn is one Barry Miller (Jack Earle Haley) – ‘I’m your host’ he declares as a collection of mannequins form the audience.

They are the latest contestants in his twisted game show – inevitably the hinted at tensions rise up as things play out, especially as he pits them against each other in the various ‘games’ – but let’s face it we have been here before in the realms of torture porn. There’s even a sort of throwback to 1959s HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM at one point.

However, there is nothing really new on offer here, apart from the clearly bonkers compère – with Haley having a whale of a time with his manic performance. Some well done practical gore effects keep things lively, and the script does try and relate it to the #MeToo movement, so I guess that’s an interesting angle. Overall it’s a case of been there, done that, seen it before.

Steve Kirkham