Feeling nostalgic for the torture horror wave of the Noughties yet? If you are, then Your Host (2025) has got you covered. The proviso which comes with this, however, is that if you didn’t particularly enjoy that style of filmmaking, then this isn’t the one to win you over. It’s a clear and affectionate homage to the kinds of more-or-less mindless cruelty of the first few Saw titles, and any number of the similar, low-budget titles which followed in their wake.
We even start with a man chained to a chair, just for the avoidance of doubt. The set-up here is that someone is filming his torment, torment which is taking place under the auspices of some kind of televised ‘game’. That it’s being filmed as a kind of gameshow schtick also owes some debt to the hyper-cynical 80s with its own ultraviolent TV show plotlines and subplots, but this isn’t The Running Man, and the links are mainly confined to the idea that people behave so much worse when they think they have an audience to please.
We start out with a few of the same issues which have dogged those low-budget ordeal flicks since their Noughties heyday. Perhaps that’s all part of the homage. Case in point: there’s a few moments early on in the main storyline of Your Host which leads you to wonder: are these people genuinely meant to be relatable, or are they simply being offered up as disposable, so that we don’t care what happens? This minor confusion is caused by the early characterisation of a cluster of (mostly) affluent twentysomethings whom we see rocking up at a fancy summerhouse for the weekend. The script is lavish with nonsense meant to show them as socially responsible, bright young things, but it just comes off as a checklist of ways these people are likely to annoy us. We then see them ‘partying’ like much younger kids, double-daring one another to kiss, vaping, squabbling – right before they hear a disturbance outside and one of their number heads outside to investigate. There, he finds a video camera on a tripod, which he brings inside, but strangely, after some initial comment this fact seems to go out-of-mind for a while, and the foursome continue carping at each other or flirting with each other. Me, I’d be more bothered. Before too long, however, the camera-owner comes to retrieve it…
Just prior to things suddenly becoming a lot nastier, rich boy James (Jamie Flatters) – whose family owns this place – yells out in exasperation at one of the girls, ‘I am sick of this jump scare bullshit!’ To be fair to Your Host, this could serve as a descriptor of the rest of the film, as it very much avoids any more of these, or indeed that kind of horror at all. The premise is this: a failed TV star and serial killer called Barry (!) (Jackie Earle Haley) has captured our houseguests and confined them in a modified building, where he will force them to take part in a warped gameshow format. As they take part in his games, they gradually get dispatched in a number of genuinely unpleasant and grisly ways.
The whole ‘torture porn’ arc was not to this reviewer’s especial tastes – with a handful of exceptions – so seeing it being both commemorated and resurrected here is a strange feeling, but to give it its dues: Your Host is definitely a grower. Sure, the people it introduces are thinly drawn, but under the specific kinds of pressure they’re then placed under, their characterisation improves; Jackie Earle Haley is an old hand at this kind of thing and, as the demented host, he does a decent turn; he’s always interesting when he’s on screen, and rather than playing it entirely po-faced, he’s able to add a surprising amount of energy and charm to his role. You could even call him affable; he gets to add a few jokes and they land, being so much more subtle than the initial writing would suggest is in store.
This film can also boast high production values too: it may be nasty, but it does not look cheap. Gore FX are obviously a huge part of this kind of cinema, and here the effects are – with no exaggeration – superb, with one sequence in particular prompting a ‘how did they do that?’. Any CGI is hard to detect; this is for the most part a hands-on practical affair, and gorehounds will find plenty to love. It also jogs along at a fair pace with its unflinching violence and its blaring soundtrack, and it’s at it its best when it does. Things lag briefly when there’s an oddball addition of a #MeToo moment meant as justification for the events unfolding, which the film categorically doesn’t need. Wherever it pauses to talk politics, it loses some of its charm and impetus.
However, it’s worth saying that horror fans get the warm fuzzies over the strangest of things, so there’s very likely a whole army of people out there who will get that feeling from Your Host. If you cut your teeth on Saws and Hostels, then there’s plenty of gore and grime here to entertain you. At the very least, and if you’re someone not averse to a jump scare or to other kinds of horror altogether, you can certainly still appreciate the set pieces and the commitment to the craft displayed here by director DW Medoff, the magicians at the Imaginari Factory in Rome and the rest of the team.
Your Host (2025) received its world premiere at FrightFest London on August 22nd 2025.