[Film Review] Superhost (2021)

Horror has always held a mirror up to the concerns and social anxieties of its time – taking our collective anxieties about difference, isolation, and change and giving them form.

As we start to crest out of the early 21st century, something that’s been preoccupying our lizard brains is the creeping influence of technology upon our lives. Specifically, how increased reliance on technology has opened the door to strangers entering our lives in intimate and sometimes dangerous ways. In my time reviewing horror film festivals, I’ve seen horror based around many new technological or app-based advancements: smarthome assistants, Zoom, Doordash and Uber. So it was only a matter of time before a film tackled the inherent weirdness of renting a stranger’s home from them for your vacation through AirBnB. Enter Superhost. 

Superhost was conceived, written, and directed by Brandon Christensen, and stars Osric Chau (of Supernatural fame), Sarah Canning, and Gracie Gillam. The plot is simple: a couple of wannabe influencers have created a YouTube channel where they travel and rate various rental getaways, and one of their weekend trips goes horribly, horribly wrong. The horror here is topical, certainly: I’ve rented some AirBnBs where the thought “this feels like the beginning of a horror movie” has absolutely occurred to me. But I think in trying to tackle both the weirdness of timeshare-app rental culture and poke fun at the idea of lifestyle influencers, this film bit off a little more than it could chew in its ninety-minute runtime. The audience can’t really focus on the strangeness of the situation because we’re constantly being hit over the head with how unlikable the social-media obsessed Claire (Canning) is. And because the film is really invested in making this point about the ills of seeking online clout, it doesn’t devote time to building up the necessary slow burn of uncomfortable moments in the house or with the host, Rebecca (Gillam). Instead, Gillam chews the scenery from her first appearance, making the already obvious killer host conceit so condescendingly apparent it’s not even fun to watch. No hate to Gillam, however – she was appropriately unhinged per the direction I’m sure she was given. 

All of this could be forgiven, of course, if the film was a campy gorefest or was filled with cheap but fun jump scares. Unfortunately, Superhost clearly thinks it’s being the slow burn it’s not, so we don’t see any violence, at all, until the final half hour of the film. There are obvious comparisons here to The Retreat,  another rental-home-horror film I reviewed here on Ghouls a few months ago [Film Review] The Retreat (2021) Enacts Gruesome Queer Catharsis — Ghouls Magazine that does a lot of similar things. But where The Rental was deeply atmospheric and gave its different plot points time to develop, Superhost is so hell bent on making fun of influencer tropes that all you end up seeing are, well, tropes. Not that a trope is a bad thing, but a film needs to go beyond being referential. 

Superhost does have a few highlights. Since the protagonists have a YouTube channel, the perspective switches between traditional external observer and seeing the footage directly from their camera, or even watching their heavily edited YouTube videos. This small choice breaks up the film in interesting ways, and it’s one of the few times we get to see any of Teddy’s (Chau) personality, such as when he edits in memes. The nod to the potentials of 21st century found film through the lenses of YouTube and livestreaming was nice, and I found myself longing for the whole movie to be shot that way – which could have helped with the slow burn issues. 

Another delightful treat in the film is a cameo from none other than Barbara Crampton herself. Fresh off a successful turn in Jakob’s Wife, Crampton gives a small but delightful performance as Vera, a previously spurned host of Teddy and Claire. Once again, I found myself wanting more  because Crampton’s interactions with the other actors, especially Gillam, provided some of the best and most human moments in the film. 

Ultimately, Superhost is a film with some really fun ideas (found footage influencer horror! AirBnBs are terrifying!) that it simply doesn’t pull in the proper directions for the duration of its runtime. If it had leaned harder into one of the angles, either the horror of living in a stranger’s home or the horror of living a life entirely for the sake of the internet,  something really interesting and unsettling could have emerged. But unfortunately, that’s not the movie we got at the end of the day.  Superhost will appeal to Barbara Crampton filmography completionists, (which is a noble thing to be) as she’s totally the best part. 

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