Superhost: Blu-Ray Review

Arriving on Blu-ray this week is writer/director Brandon Christensen’s Shudder Original, Superhost. This is the filmmaker’s third feature film, following 2017’s Sill/Born and 2019’s Z. While those films we both suburban-based tales of terror that focused mainly on families and heavily revolved around children and parents, Superhost goes in a different direction.

Young couple Claire (Sara Canning) and Teddy (Osric Chau) host a travel video blog called Superhost, where they book and review homes that they rent for the weekend.  Their latest booking is a beautiful home nestled in the woods and the apparent homeowner Rebecca (Gracie Gillam), is willing to bend over backwards to make sure her new guests enjoy their stay.

Claire and Teddy’s show is losing followers and has reached a point where Teddy’s parents are helping-out with the bills. However, Claire believes that viewers would love the possibly psychotic Rebecca and she wants to include her in the videos, even though Teddy doesn’t think that may be the best idea. He also had another plan for this trip and that was to surprise Claire with a marriage proposal.

While Rebecca is trying to be the best host as possible, including sneaking into the home while the couple are sleeping to make them pancakes (OK, maybe that might not be the best way to get a great review), she may not be aware that she is completely creeping out Claire and Teddy. Still, Claire is all about getting as much Rebecca footage as possible for the show.  Unfortunately, when the host hears Claire call her crazy through one of the many cameras positioned around the house, that pushes her a bit over the edge and now the couple begin to find themselves in real danger.

Christensen has proven himself as a genre filmmaker to keep an eye on. While his features are often tightly edited and move along swiftly, he also seems to have a knack for delivering one great surprising scare in each of his features. For his film Z there was a moment involving a kid and some stairs.  Here we get an insanely awesome moment involving horror icon Barbara Crampton as a vengeful business owner who has been severely affected by Claire and Teddy’s series. Each of these moments are memorable and stick with you long after the end credits have rolled.

The real star of Superhost would be Gillam who absolutely kills it here (pun intended). Her career so far has been a mix of genre and Disney fare, but the young star gets to truly shine in Superhost giving one of the best horror performances of the year. I would love to see a potential sequel if she comes back to terrorize another group of unsuspecting vacationers.

Bonus features:

• Director Commentary
• Behind-the-Scenes of Superhost
• Shooting in a Pandemic
• Bloopers
• Superhost Visual FX
• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery
• “Scaredycats” Episodes 1 & 2

By: Marc Ferman