If you follow me at all, you know that found footage isn’t really my cup of tea. It’s such a specific way of filming that, when done well, can be creative and spooky. I also appreciate the way it allows filmmakers to experiment and work within smaller budget parameters. But I also always approach them with trepidation because the horror genre is littered with terrible knock-offs and poorly executed films.

Once in awhile, though, a director knows the limitations and benefits of the filmmaking style and can handily take advantage of the medium to really turn the screws and scare the shit out of you. I still remember my first experience with Paranormal Activity, sitting in a theatre packed to the brim with fans, just eating the scares up. It’s an experience I find myself desperately missing, some six months into a quarantine that has destroyed localized communal movie watching. Because of social isolation, life continues to become more and more online, with friends reaching out through Skype or Zoom or other video apps to keep in touch, watch movies or play games.

It was only a matter of time before someone came along and used that as a horror movie gimmick. I went into Host with this mindset, thinking that while it would capitalize on our current situation, it’d be another found footage disaster that’d continue to fuel my bias towards them. So imagine my surprise when I sat down to watch this unassuming Zoom horror film and found myself screaming and clapping as the movie ended.

Host does so much with so little and goddamn is it one of the best found footage films I’ve seen.

Zoom meetings self-destruct and, in that spirit, Host wastes no time getting to the spooky. The premise is delightfully simple: Six friends get together to do an online Zoom séance. We’re quickly introduced to the sixsome as one by one, the friends pop into the Zoom meeting hosted by Haley (Haley Bishop). First we get Jemma (Jemma Moore), the impatient jokester who lives near Haley and Emma (Emma Louise Webb) who loves to mess around with silly face filters, but is a little nervous about conjuring spirits. Radina (Radina Drandova) pops in with a cough in a time of COVID and is quarantining with a recent boyfriend who is already getting on her nerves.

Meanwhile, Caroline (Caroline Ward) jumps in with her T-zone masked up because her pores aren’t doing well in lockdown with her parents. Finally, Teddy (Edward Linard) who is quarantining at his girlfriend Jinny (Jinny Lofthouse)’s parents’ house, shows up, distracted as ever. With everyone in attendance, Haley pulls in her medium friend Seylan (Seylan Baxter) and while Seylan has performed many séances in the past, this is her first time doing it through Zoom.

What a time to be alive.

After a few spooky moments involving knocking, banging and flickering lights, Jemma gets impatient and makes up a story about a boy she used to know at school who hanged himself. Quickly, what started as a fun socially distancing time-waster turns menacing as spooky shenanigans ensue, escalating over the course of a slightly extended Zoom meeting runtime.

Let’s waste no time: Rob Savage’s Host surprised the hell out of me.

Filmed during quarantine and with actors in their own homes, Host is an impeccably paced 56 minutes, filled with surprising practical effects and actors doing their own stunts. Immediately, I forgot that I was watching a movie that was obviously filmed under a ton of limitations. It feels effortless and is basically a masterclass in making a found footage horror film, COVID complications be damned. The story is anchored by authentic performances among a group of people who actually feel like real friends and actually like each other. The beginning feels authentically real, as if we’re lurking on an actual Zoom call, picking up on the little in-jokes and learning the group dynamics. Like the way they good-naturedly rib Radina for quarantining with a lover she barely knows. Or the way they laugh over Emma’s stupid face filters or cheer at Caroline’s hammy father.

While Host does operate on familiar tropes and scares, the way the filmmakers use these tropes to their advantage elevates the standard jolts with a flair of ingenuity. It immediately brought me back to sitting in the theater, witnessing the way Paranormal Activity got under its audiences’ skins and had people jumping at a door slowly opening or made us pixel-hunters, actively scouring for the freaky moment. You gotta love a movie that doesn’t advertise scary moments and Host warrants paying attention with some impressive blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scares. I particularly enjoyed and rewound a moment where a character walks through her house, completely oblivious to a pair of legs hanging from the ceiling, slightly out of frame.

The filmmakers also lean into technology and use Zoom’s facial recognition, filters and Zoom backgrounds to create uniquely and unexpectedly terrifying moments. And Zoom’s limitations and technical issues added darkly comedic jolts to the scares. When it gets to the final moments, you know what’s coming and yet I found myself giggling. At that point Host won me over and I was under its spell.

I can’t help but cheer to see someone take the limitations of filming during quarantine and turning them into positives. The best part, though, is that Host doesn’t feel like it’s operating under forced conditions. If anything, the situation simply adds an additional layer of claustrophobia. Moreover, Host made me appreciate and reconsider the power of found footage, particularly at a time when major productions are at a standstill.

We find ourselves at a moment when we feel powerless and, in some ways, found footage filmmaking thrives in that environment because it operates on the necessity of minimalism. There’s something awe-inspiring seeing filmmakers creatively navigating a world that’s been put on hold. It makes me fall in love with humanity’s ability to be creative in a time of strife. So turn out the lights, drag out your laptop/tablet and experience a film that showcases what the found footage subgenre can accomplish. All shocks, no filler, Host is a winner and easily sits next to Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum as one of the best found footage films I’ve seen.

Period.