‘Your Host’ Review – Bloody Twists, Deadly Games And A Lot Of Familiarity [FrightFest 2025]

Game show hosts often have a sinister quality about them. They’re trying to trick you into giving the wrong answer while also being the most cheerful person on the planet. While Barry Miller (Jackie Earle Haley) in Your Host is that typical quiz presenter, he takes the tricks (or better said, traps) and the game itself to a whole new, deadlier level. Instead of beating the competition to win money, his intended victims are fighting against each other just to survive. While this premise can undoubtedly be the start of a brutal, over-the-top, yet effective horror film, this film leaves a lot to be desired, especially in terms of story.

Not because there’s a lack of dedication and passion, though. No, it’s clear that director DW Medoff (I Will Never Leave You Alone) and his team are pouring their heart, soul and blood into this work, but it all feels too familiar. Right from the get-go, you have the feeling you’ve seen the story before. The movie opens with the usual setup of the murderously unhinged host playing and toying with his latest victim before it cuts to his four soon-to-be captives. Those four potential victims (Ella-Rae Smith, Jamie Flatters, David Angland and Joelle Rae) are certainly not aware of the gruesome fate that awaits them as they’re partying like there is no tomorrow. However, once tomorrow comes, that’s when the true nightmare begins.

It certainly has a formulaic structure that many horror fans are familiar with, especially if you’ve seen Saw V and Jigsaw. Even when the frightening foursome wakes up in the game show studio, or rather, the playful torture chamber, the shadows of similar horror features loom over Your Host. Four contestant pinned to a wall with a chain of stainless steel around their necks? Yes, what’s new, right? While it’s great to see Medoff move from his more claustrophobic debut feature to this more violent and gleeful work, the script is too heavily reliant on genre tropes to truly set itself apart from similar features.

One of those tropes is undoubtedly that the characters are secondary while the horror is key, and that’s definitely the case in this work too. There are almost no long character exposés, except perhaps at the beginning and just before the big reveal. For the majority of the runtime, you get snippets, hints and a few dark secrets to ensure that you will feel for those four friends. You might not care for all the potential victims – either because they’re caricatures or because they’re just backstabbers who may or may not deserve their theatrical demise – but you’ll certainly care for Smith’s (Into the Deep) Anita. Unlike her co-stars, she succeeds in breaking down character barriers and stereotypes, ensuring that her character puts up the biggest fight possible while also trying to protect her own secrets and life.  

The fact that writer Joey Miller focuses much more on the bloody twists, deadly games, and life-changing consequences than on the characters ensures that, once the game is entirely underway, the movie goes completely off the rails. Medoff and his cast and crew revel in that gore the script has to offer as they turn up the level of (dark) humour, playfulness, dismembered bodies, cut off limbs, and gallons of blood to the maximum. While Your Host might have a much smaller budget and a more indie vibe than its genre predecessors, it does, creatively, effectively and wonderfully give the usual games an upgrade.

The host clearly has no intention of teaching his victim a lesson. All he wants is for them to suffer (both physically and mentally), and no game is too brutal to play. This not only results in a stand-out performance by Haley (Watchmen) as the deranged captor, who certainly keeps this feature together, but also in games we’ve played before, getting a much sinister twist than you can ever imagine.

With this movie, Miller clearly pays homage to the torture porn horror films, maybe a bit too much. The story feels all too familiar, while the characters are definitely ‘been there, done that’. The script not only aims to explore the horror element, but also wants to highlight more contemporary topics, such as  #MeToo and sexual abuse. Sadly, it doesn’t delve too deeply into the issues, as they’ve been swept under the carpet swiftly, despite those aspects being part of the overall climax. Yes, the script might be shaky, but put it into the hands of Medoff, and you get a movie that still delivers the scares and nastiness to make it interesting.

Your Host had its World Premiere at FrightFest 2025.

Director: DW Medoff

Writer: Joey Miller

Rated: NR

Runtime: 91m