Host

Host (2020) is a British horror short you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Rob Savage during the depths of lockdown. Six friends book a medium for a séance over Zoom. Boredom drives the idea. It does not end well.

The whole film plays out inside a single video call that runs under an hour. Faces sit in a grid of webcams, lit by phone screens and flickering lamps, each woman alone in her own flat. The ritual starts half as a joke — one of them fakes a contact, another rolls her eyes — until something none of them invited begins moving at the edges of the frames. Then the calls start dropping, the lights go, and the camera meant to keep them together becomes the thing watching each of them.

Savage shot it remotely with the cast operating their own rigs, and that cramped, can't-look-away format is exactly why it lands. No score to hide behind, no escape from the screen, just 57 tight minutes that earned it a cult reputation as the defining horror of the pandemic year. If you think a video call can't scare you, this is the one to try. Stream Host (2020) online on iFILM.