Host (M)
Shudder
★★★
When six friends in COVID-19 lockdown decide to have a seance via the video platform Zoom, one of them thinks that it “sounds spooky”. Another replies, “It’ll be something a little different.”
This is the set-up for the British horror movie Host, made for the US-based streaming service Shudder, which specialises in the horror, thriller and supernatural genres and has just started operations in Australia and New Zealand.
The second friend is right because the director and co-writer, Rob Savage, limited by COVID-19 restrictions, could not be in the same room as the actors and had to direct them remotely.
Nor could the actors be in the same room, so each had to do their own camerawork, lighting, stunts and, with remote assistance, special effects.
The first friend is right because the result, an hour-long movie, is quite spooky. I’m sure there will be lots more pandemic-quarantine movies to come, but Host has claims to being among the first in a genre that already has a label: “quar-horror”.
The actors use their real first names. The seance organiser is Haley (Haley Bishop) and her friends are Radina (Radina Drandova), Jemma (Jemma Moore), Caroline (Caroline Ward), Emma (Emma Louise Webb from The Crown) and, the one man, Teddy (Edward Linard). The medium who runs the seance, a friend of Haley’s, is Seylan (Seylan Baxter).
As they hook up via Zoom, the screen splits so that at times we see all of them at once. At other times we see just one or two of them at a time. This is deftly done. At all times, we see them via a screen. They are in their homes yet they may not be alone.
When the medium starts the seance, she tells them that being “possessed” by someone or something (one of the friends does ask about her dead pets) from the spirit realm is not something to be scared of. But it’s important, she adds, to respect the spirits.
The first suggestions of other presences are mild. Lights flicking on and off, knocking sounds, a chair moving. Then Jemma screams and jumps from her chair. She says she felt a hand firmly gripping her shoulder.
She cries and says she thinks it is Jack, a schoolfriend who hanged himself. Her friends are consoling and a little frightened. However, she soon laughs and says she made it all up. There was no Jack. This is a bad move.
The medium, who soon disappears from screen, warns Jemma has created a mask behind which any spirit can hide and enter their world, even demonic ones. From here the plot rushes forward.
There are well-placed jump scares, ones made all the more impressive by the fact we are seeing them via webcam.
When Teddy’s screen goes blank, for example, is it due to a demon or an internet outage? When Caroline’s face crashes into her laptop screen is it due to a poltergeistian push or the wine she has been drinking?
I will not reveal which is true. I will add, though, that denizens of the astral plane perhaps consider themselves above terrestrial government regulations about social distancing.
Shudder is owned by the American entertainment group AMC. It was set up five years ago and has expanded into Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany and now the antipodes, just in time for Halloween.
Indeed, some of the Halloween movies are on its site, along with originals such as Host. I am pleased to see the 1982 Ozploitation classic Turkey Shoot, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, is available.
Shudder is also making original TV series, including Creepshow, based on the 1982 cult movie by George A. Romero.
Shudder costs $6.99 a month. The group is offering a seven-day free trial to Australian viewers. Full details at www.shudder.com
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The One and Only Ivan (PG)
Disney+
★★
The live action-animated animal adventure The One and Only Ivan is based on the 2012 book by Katherine Applegate, which won the Newbery Medal, one of the US’s most prestigious awards for children’s literature. Previous winners include EB White for Charlotte’s Web, Hugh Lofting for The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, Madeleine L’Engle for A Wrinkle in Time (which was filmed in 2018) and, more recently, Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book and Lois Lowry for The Giver (filmed by Australian director Philip Noyce in 2014).
The book is based on a true story about a gorilla who, as an infant, was captured in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo and transported to the US, where he grew up and became the star of a sideshow in a shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington.
The background of this movie is a bit like Ivan himself: it was trapped somewhere it didn’t belong, in this case development limbo. Disney bought the film rights in 2014 and Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) was signed on as director. However, he left the project and the job went to English theatre and film director Thea Sharrock. It’s her second film, following the solid Me Before You (2016), based on the YA novel by Jojo Moyes.
In 2017, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie became involved as a producer and cast member and the ball started rolling. Other cast members include Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Danny DeVito, and Oscar winners Sam Rockwell and Helen Mirren. Screenwriter Mike White (The Good Girl) stuck on. His adaptation of the novel starts with the same words, spoken by the silverback gorilla Ivan (voiced by Rockwell): “Hi, I’m Ivan. I am a gorilla. It’s not as easy as it looks, you’ll see.”
The main live actor is Cranston, as Mack, the man who raised Ivan, then put him in the sideshow. They have a father-son relationship that at times adds some emotional depth to the movie.
Ivan’s fellow inmates — because, let’s face it, they are jailed in a shopping mall — include an African elephant named Stella (Jolie), a stray dog named Bob (DeVito), Mack’s pampered poodle Snickers (Mirren) and an important newcomer, a baby elephant named Ruby (Brooklyn Prince). We, the audience, can hear their conversations, but Mack hears only animal snorts and grunts.
That the animation is realistic was confirmed when my English staffordshire terrier, Jack, charged at the screen at the first appearance of Snickers. Then again, Jack has a thing about small white poodles and I suspect would also chase a fake one.
Ivan is the “headliner”, the drawcard who packs the house. He does this by roaring and pounding his chest like King Kong.
Yet, like Kong, he has a gentler side. When Bob asks him if he is showing real rage, Ivan says: “No, I was acting.”
When the crowds start to drop and Mack starts to fret about his finances, Ivan worries that he is losing his touch. Then he learns something new, something crowd-pleasing, as did the real gorilla in Tacoma, who we see in a far-too-long sequence with the end credits. It’s like a documentary sequel has been added to the film.
If there is any rage, it’s bubbling beneath the surface. The animals talk about what it might be like to be free, to return to the wild (except Bob, who in a good quip, notes he’s a domesticated dog). With Ruby in mind, Ivan makes a promise to the ageing Stella, “who knows more than I will ever know”.
So there is a lot to work with here: an award-winning book, a star cast, an intriguing real story. As someone with a deep interest in animal welfare, I wanted to like this 94-minute movie. Unfortunately, though, it’s surprisingly lifeless.
There is no real character development. We should care more about Ivan than we do. Younger viewers, the under-10s, might simply enjoy watching and hearing the animals.
The director and writer do introduce plot twists that are not in the book, but they should have gone further.
They soften bits of it, with the younger viewers in mind. They should have had us on the edge of our seats, hoping the animals would pull off the impossible, as they do in Madagascar (2005), which has a similar plot line.
Ivan and the other animals are all “acting” rather than being their real selves. That brings to mind a children’s book (by American writer and cartoonist William Steig) that was turned into a near masterpiece: Shrek (2002), directed by the Kiwi-American team Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. It is one of the finest examples of how to make that genre work on screen.
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