SHUDDER EXCLUSIVE "SUPERHOST" HITS U.K. SHELVES - BLU RAY REVIEW

THE PLOT

With their follower count dwindling, travel vloggers Teddy (OSRIC CHAU) and Claire (SARA CANNING) pivot to creating viral content around their most recent "superhost," Rebecca (GRACIE GILLAM), who wants more from the duo than a great review.

THE REVIEW

Let’s get something outta the way right now - - I hate movies about vloggers, podcasters, documentarians and film students (obvious exceptions accepted of course). I hate them for no other reason than the characters are always so self centred and all encompassingly hateful. It’s a tired, lazy, hackneyed premise and it desperately, desperately needs to stop.

Wooh! I’m glad we got that cleared up before we went any further. It’s a weight off. Really.

So, SUPERHOST is a tired, lazy, hackneyed premise that drastically fails to live up to its early signs of promise. Not helping to sell the movie are the small handful of characters (Rebecca excepted, but we’ll come to her later) who are poorly rendered, and depressingly two-dimensional. Teddy and Claire aren’t anywhere near as hateful as they could have been I’ll grant you, but they’re certainly not engendering much empathy, either. Tragically, I get the sensation that these characters in particular were far more interesting in the draft stages of the script, and that their relentless scumbaggery and self-centredness (at least in Claire’s case) was far more front and centre. Ever the optimist. See, as a case in point, a more than respectable amount of synopses for SUPERHOST read much like the one above; that Teddy and Claire, in an effort to reinvigorate their YouTube channel, shift the focus of their newest episode from the holiday home to that of their “Superhost”, Rebecca, who, in appearing more than a little unusual, is ripe for exploitation. But nowhere in the film itself is this made particularly apparent. Shit, even the reason for Teddy and Claire’s subscriber loss is dripping in such a degree of ambiguity that you can’t help but wonder if what started off as a serviceably whimsical story isn’t actually just, well, a bit cruel.

Of additional mystery to me, is at least one intriguing plot development which, in retrospect, is conspicuous in its presence (is that even a real saying? It sounds nicer than “sticks out like a dildo in a wine glass”) since it’s never referenced again. It’s as if the idea was partially formed pending further development but was left in the film because it looked spooky. It’s intensely irritating and not a little incompetent.

Scope certainly exists for this to have been a deliciously wicked dark comedy, but the multiple opportunities for a bit of mischief are squandered. There are a smattering of twists and turns along the way, but by the time they’ve unfurled it’s difficult to react to them with any modicum of interest. However, in a film which is generally bereft of anything noteworthy or original, GRACIE GILLAM shines. Unhinged, maniacal, and genuinely menacing, she’s too good a villain for this movie, and despite her absolute fruit-loopery having been broadcast to the audience from the get-go, GILLAM keeps enough in reserve to make Rebecca’s development from endearing kook to full-bore psychopath a gripping watch.