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Host (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) needs a better title, because Googling it feels like trying to find a specific strand of hay in a dozen haystacks. But don’t judge it for that – this supernatural thriller from Thai director Pokpong Pairach Khumwan has atmosphere for miles, and exists in the realm between strictly-for-the-kills trashy horror and the “elevated” stuff that wants to, you know, say something about the world and the people that live in it. The movie doesn’t always work, but regular consumers of this brand of creepiness may find it satisfying.
HOST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: “What have you done?” Ing (Thitiya Jirapornsilp) doesn’t reply. Maybe Pin (Pisitpol Ekaphongpisit) overstepped the bounds of propriety with that question. He works for a Pinthkun Reform School, a prison-slash-sanctuary for troubled teenage girls on a remote island. He fixes things, helps out, pilots the boat that takes the “inmates” to or from freedom. He’s a nice enough fella. But Ing? Pin can’t crack her. She doesn’t say much. Ever. One look at her omnipresent stoic, expressionless face tells us she’s carrying significant psychic weight wherever she goes. They wade to shore and are greeted with a smile by Aim (Veerinsara Tangkitsuvanich), but don’t believe it for a second. It’s mostly for Pin, and the two seem to share mutual affinity. “Mother said I’ll be released soon,” she chirps. Maybe they have plans to run off and make babies or something.
Aim walks Ing to the reformatory, through the rusty old gates and past the other girls, who toil at various jobs: preparing food, washing, hauling around buckets of water and buckets of, well, it looks like mud but probably isn’t. It’s 1976, but plumbing technology apparently hasn’t reached this island yet. The boss of this joint is Ms. Pristsana, but you can call her – ulp – Mother (Narinthorn Na Bangchang). She’s a real pleasant sort. Looks like she chews on sheet metal and spits out nails. She assembles all the girls in a Handmaid’s Tale grid and forces Ing to introduce herself. Then she tells them to get the eff back to work, ye scurvy dogs. She brings Ing to her office, where we learn the girl is 17 and the reason she’s here is… well, Mother trails off. Must be not particularly nice. So not particularly nice, we surely won’t find out until the third act.
Life for the average Pinthkun girl is utter sewage. It’s worse for Ing, though. The new girl gets the bed with the cockroaches. And she gets hazed with a fresh bucket of human waste over her head. The leader of this ring of thugs? Sweet chirpy Aim, who turns into a razor sword battleaxe gargoyle when no adults are around. She wears the red armband that means Mother bestowed upon her power to wield authority. Mother wants these girls to police each other, which sounds like a GREAT idea. And Aim follows this order by being a ruthless shithead with cronies by her side in Maprang (Weeraya Zhang) and Nuch (Nutkitta Poonsukwattana). The cronies hold down Ing so Aim can half-suffocate the poor kid with a sheet and wipe her shoes on her face, stuff like that. Only Ploy (Sanutcha Janchoom) has any sympathy for the new girl because they’re both “bumpkins” from the rural north.
That last bit is important. Bumpkins believe and practice some strange whatnot. Some of that whatnot involves demons and rituals and snapping the head off a weird little doll the size of a chess piece. Ploy recognizes Ing as someone who’s born of a human and a ghost, and therefore is protected by a “godmother ghost.” That might explain why Aim gets up in the middle of the night and sees things in the corner of the frame, and thinks she feels a scaly hand grabbing her, and gets pushed down the stairs. But that’s just bunk, y’know? Her inclination is to blame Ing and continue to bully her, but that’s counterintuitive when a godmother ghost seeks to punish those who torment her child, summoned with the clucking of the tongue against the palate. The entity wears a creepy mask and appears and disappears at the will of a film director obsessed with jump scares and bears no prejudice for those who deserve her wrath, even if they’re an adult. Like, say, Mother. Godmama doesn’t kill anyone right off the bat, though; she lays down a warning or seven (or 200) in order to stretch the run time, it seems. But if you hear that cluck, you’re in for it, holmes.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone is a similarly haunted tale set in a Mexican orphanage. And Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul explored similar things in a far more profound – but similarly slow-paced – way in the modern weird, slow-cinema classic Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
Performance Worth Watching: When Jirapornslip finally breaks the dour facade and smiles, it’s damn creepy.
Memorable Dialogue: Cluck cluck cluck.
Sex and Skin: Brief toplessness as the girls bathe at a trough. (Note: bathing troughs are not sexy.)
Our Take: There are times when it feels like Khumwan took the concept for a short film and stretched it to two hours. He nicely sets the stage in the opening 30, and delivers a satisfying (if slightly muddled) payoff in the final 30. But the middle hour is saggy and repetitive with its multiple instances of bullying followed by creepy bump-in-the-night shenanigans and brief glimpses of the spiritual entity blurred in the background of shots, or her knobby hand reaching in from the side of the screen.
Aside from a showy but effective flashback featuring splashes and slashes of red blood amidst black-and-white imagery, Khumwan doesn’t functionally develop characters. It’s as if he brainstormed a big pile of nighttime slow-dread/jump-scare moments and couldn’t bear to leave a single one on the editing room floor. He also crafts a highly provocative sequence teasing a finale that points toward an unpredictable climax, only to ruthlessly pull the rug: It Was All A Dream. But hey, at least in that dream he got to stage a few more kills than we might enjoy without it.
Despite its structural issues and sluggish pacing, Host isn’t just an exercise in spooky stuff. It’s heavily atmospheric, at times a thoughtful and diabolically ironic exploration of how corporal punishment and abuse only perpetuates violence; the narrative takes the notion of punishing all for the sins of one and turns it on its head. It also isn’t afraid to toy with notions of morality, of the nature of protagonists and antagonists, and test our loyalty to its characters. I only wish it executed these ideas in a more clear and efficient manner.
Our Call: Host is flabby and too long, and therefore will sometimes test your patience. But it’s moderately freaky and provocative, and delivers on its ambitions more than it fails them. Moderate your expectations and STREAM IT.
Where To Watch Host (2025)
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.