The Host (2013) – Review

Where to watch The Host

1 Star

In the future Earth has been taken over by an alien race that occupies the bodies of every living being on the planet. Those lucky enough to have avoided assimilation are on the run. The possessed humans are differentiated by the luminous circular glow around the pupils of the eye. Thing is this alien race has successfully invaded our planet, not in the service of destruction, but perfecting our world. Yet there are small pockets of resistance fighters scattered throughout the land. One of those rebels is Melanie Stryker, a fierce young woman who dies in the opening scene, throwing herself through a high-rise window instead of facing capture. The alien beings simply reanimate the female with a foreign life-force in the hopes of using the girl’s memories to discover rebel locations.

Melanie’s family survived the first wave of colonization. Now she is literally battling for control of her mind and body from the alien force occupying her physical form named, The Wanderer. This is illustrated by the silly narration that suggest an inner battle for control of the body’s motor skills. Eventually this leads to a desert hideaway populated by Uncle Jeb, and Aunt Maggie. The stoic William Hurt and Frances Fisher portray Melanie’s former extended family, while the others in the group want to kill this abomination, Jeb argues somewhere inside Melanie is sill alive. The Host ungracefully moves from the pseudo Little House on the Pairie dramatics to Niccol’s ongoing fetish for futuristic cars chasing one another.

Having successfully avoided viewing any of the Twilight movies, I had minimal expectations for this similarly themed piece adapted by noted sci-fi genre aficionado Andrew Niccol from author Stephenie Meyer’ novels. The best thing The Host has going for it is the confident direction and sleek look Niccol bestows on this unoriginal turd. I’m not sure if The Hunger Games books preceded or followed the literary release of The Host. In chronological cinematic order, The Host feels like a somewhat desperate and surprisingly low-budget attempt to fuse aspects of the Twilight saga with the bleak futuristic angle of The Hunger Games.

Director: Andrew Niccol
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel