Superhost Review (Film, 2021)
content warning: blood, violence against women, mental wellness
Superhost is a hybrid found footage/home invasion horror film. Teddy and Claire host Superhost, an online travel series where they review vacation rental homes. Their views and subscribers are going down, so they’re really hoping the next rental will be a hit. Then they meet their superhost Rebecca and know they have a potential gold mine.
Writer/director Brandon Christensen’s Superhost is unapologetic in its approach. It’s not uncommon to have unlikeable and untrustworthy characters in a horror film. It’s quite another thing to make a mostly three person horror film where you can’t trust anyone and probably won’t like anyone, either.
Claire is obsessed with saving the failing Superhost channel. She only wants to do what is best for the views, but her method has been failing for quite some time now. It’s putting a strain on her relationship with Teddy and she seems to not care. They can fall back in love when Superhost can pay the bills.
Teddy is a bit more relatable, but he’s also hiding some secrets. He wants to propose to Claire on the trip. He’s planning the whole thing in secret, filming a secret vlog series and hiding it from her. His motivations are pure, but he knows how stressed Claire is about their shared business right now. Is this really the right time to put Superhost on the backburner, not deliver what they need for the camera, and just focus on his own feelings?
And then there’s Rebecca. I actually feel bad for her. Right away, Claire paints her as a “crazy” person. Sure, she’s a little weird, but there is nothing so off about her behavior that the Superhost channel feels justified in turning her into a clickbait exploitation piece about a wacky superhost. She does start to cross some lines, but only after Teddy and Claire take advantage of her hospitality.
The real star of Superhost is the stunning set. The gigantic house is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by beautiful woods and scenic cliffs. There are entire walls made of windows, filling the house with light and leaving no place to hide. Are the railings a little off in shape? Sure. Are there a few too many security cameras in every wall and ceiling location imaginable for a house this remote? Perhaps. But the place has nice bones and a scenic view into a failing online video channel.
That’s the real metaphor at play here and it works. Teddy and Claire can control how their video footage looks in the edit, but they can’t even pull together usable takes anymore without arguing. They’re drawn to the massive windows like moths to the flame, but start to realize that someone might be watching them. Ironic. They won’t venture outside the house without the camera to give some structure to their relationship and their understanding of the world. They’ve essentially turned their lives into an eternal video shoot and really can’t function anymore without the validation of their online viewers.
Rebecca doesn’t have that luxury. She shows up to let them into the house and is immediately turned off by having a camera shoved in her face. She tries to be nice and hospitable, but Teddy and Claire clearly want to use her for more. Even when she puts herself together and agrees to go on camera for an interview, she’s subjected to, at best, patronizing language or, at worst, hostile judgment against her character. She’s just trying to get a good review from the travel gurus. Give her a break.
Everything I’ve described happens in the opening stretch of the film. Superhost is filled with some great twists that feel true to this setup. The third act, especially, really plays off the long game established in the first few minutes to create a truly shocking ending.
Superhost is streaming on Shudder.
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