10 Spine-Chilling Movies To Watch If You Liked Host (2020)
Host is a Shudder original film that perfectly suits this year of the pandemic. Shot and edited entirely on laptop and phone screens, the cyber horror plays out the entirety of a video call conference on the app Zoom. The Zoom meeting initially starts off with a group of friends trying to communicate with spirits of dead friends and family members on an astral plane. But one mistake leads to a domino effect of supernatural occurrence in every chat window, leading to a set of unexpected jump scares and paranormal activities.
Even though the film clocks in at under an hour, Host has enough substance to make it a scary and thrilling watch with a lot to interpret.
10 Kairo (2001)
Kairo (also known as Pulse) is a Japanese techno-horror with a cult following. The movie did spawn English remakes with the Pulse franchise, but it's the original that provides genuine chills. It revolves around supernatural spirits invading the human world through internet connections.
Rather than relying on gore or jump scares, Kairo builds an atmospheric horror suited for the modern tech-savvy generation. The real horror lies in the possibility of Kairo's setting turn into a real-life scenario, especially for a population that's obsessively addicted to their screens.
9 Ouija: Origin Of Evil (2016)
The first Ouija film turned out to be quite a forgettable film, but it was its prequel Ouija: Origin Of Evil that delivered a fresh twist on horror tropes, such as possession and exorcism. Directed by modern horror maestro Mike Flanagan, it features the tale of a widow and her two daughters who use an Ouija board for a phony business of communicating with the dead.
However, amidst scamming their customers, the family doesn't realize they have brought back a spirit into the real world who is possessing one of them. The traumatic past of such spirits is revealed as the story progresses. Even though Ouija: Origin of Evil was rated PG-13, it has enough scares to raise eyebrows.
8 Unfriended (2014)
Before Host, Unfriended had experimented with the video call-horror style of filmmaking. The sleeper hit didn't get the best of critical reviews, but it has been an audience favorite since its release, many praising the execution of the film's limited setting. The entirety of Unfriended is presented as a screencast on a MacBook.
A few friends get together for a Skype conversation until an account enters the chat, pretending to be their dead friend who died by suicide exactly a year ago. Initially dismissing it as a prank, the friends grow alarmed when they realize the spirit of their friend has returned to uncover some dark secrets from every character. Unfriended can be unsettling, not just for its supernatural elements, but also for its realistic aftermath of cyberbullying.
7 The Den (2013)
The Den (also known as Hacked) is a slasher for digital times. It starts off with a woman who is academically analyzing the habits of webcam users. This makes her chance upon an actual murder happening live on a webcam. After being scarred from what she just witnessed, she also has to protect her own life, as she becomes the killer's next target.
The narrative flits through several screens, from laptops to surveillance cameras, building a tense atmosphere of suspense throughout the film.
6 Rec (2007)
The Spanish horror Rec has definitely accelerated the genres of survival and found-footage to new levels, with a very realistic and adrenaline-fueled premise. A few firefighters are trapped in an apartment building and a journalist (with her cameraman) seeks to get a story out of this situation by all means possible. As the latter discovers, a virus has been released in the building, transforming its inhabitants into savage, bloodthirsty creatures.
The building that forms the crux of Rec is definitely one of the most nightmarish and claustrophobic hellscapes in modern horror. The found-footage style, too, is different from similar films in the genre and offers a shaky, nail-biting aura.
5 V/H/S/2 (2013)
V/H/S/2 serves as the sequel to V/H/S, a horror anthology that featured several horror shorts by emerging filmmakers. The second part ups the scares and the gore, offering five segments that are connected to each other with a frame narrative. A student goes missing and private investigators chance upon a box of VHS tapes, each revealing a motive behind the disappearance.
V/H/S/2 would be a delight for genre fans with its raw, bizarre stories presented by some of the finest modern auteurs, like Gareth Evans, Adam Wingard, and Eduardo Sánchez.
4 The Visit (2015)
After a series of flops, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan bounced back with his found-footage horror, The Visit. The title refers to two children visiting their grandparents' house for a weekend getaway. When the grandparents start acting mysteriously, the children decide to investigate further, with dark and disgusting results.
Even though The Visit can disturb audiences, it has the classic horror humor, as well, complete with soiled adult diapers and The Exorcist-style projectile vomiting. As one of the lead characters tends to record everything with her video camera, a sense of realism is added to the documentary-like feel of the film.
3 Hell House LLC (2015)
Hell House LLC functions as a highly believable mockumentary with the elements of a true-crime docu-drama. The film opens with a tragedy at a Halloween-themed haunted house that leads to the death of 15 people. A documentary crew then investigates the story behind the ride's creation and what exactly could have caused it to malfunction.
For those who are faint-hearted when it comes to amusement park rides and theme park haunted houses, Hell House LLC will be an even scarier experience.
2 CAM (2018)
CAM is an intense look into a webcam model's struggle to gain popularity. Initially, the film touches upon the way such models can be exploited by users, as well as their own companies. As for the protagonist (played by a perfectly-cast Madeline Brewer), she also has to face unimaginable forces confronting an exact replica of herself running her cam account.
Produced by Blumhouse Productions, CAM takes a unique, fast-paced approach in portraying one woman's desperate attempts to understand her identity. Towards its third act, viewers may get as puzzled as the heroine in figuring what's real and what's not.
1 The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The film that ushered in a new era for found-footage cinema, The Blair Witch Project offered a real-time effect to familiar horror settings. This resulted in a modern classic that still survives the test of time, irrespective of the seemingly inferior spin-offs it spawned.
The Blair Witch Project finds a group of student-filmmakers hitchhiking in a Maryland forest and eventually getting lost in the wilderness. The recovered-footage of these students is then presented as the film. With improvised dialogues, interactive characters, and the fear of an unknown force, The Blair Witch Project is a menacingly brilliant entry in the pantheon of horror mock-docs.