Host — Even the ghosts have lockdown anxiety

Remember lockdown? I know I'm sorry — I know you don’t want to, but I think it’s worth considering for the sake of talking about Host (2020) and its genius encapsulation of the total anxiety of Covid lockdown.

We’re in the depths of winter anyway, so why not hunker down at home at relive the horrors of Zoom hangouts with friends? And you know what might make It a bit more fun — is if we throw a séance in there.

Let’s talk about Host (2020) and its portrayal of lockdown anxiety.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Sources:

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Order The Horror Concierge: A Mental Health and Horror Tarot Readings + Film Reco. Order yours HERE.

'Host' Director Breaks Down The Mythology You May Have Missed & That Ending Shot By Perri Nemiroff

Hwang TJ, Rabheru K, Peisah C, Reichman W, Ikeda M. Loneliness and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int Psychogeriatr. 2020 Oct;32(10):1217-1220. doi: 10.1017/S1041610220000988. Epub 2020 May 26. PMID: 32450943; PMCID: PMC7306546. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306546/

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The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use by Nirmita Panchal, Heather Saunders, Robin Rudowitz, and Cynthia Cox

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Pongou R, Ahinkorah BO, Maltais S, Mabeu MC, Agarwal A, Yaya S. Psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. PLoS One. 2022 Nov 17;17(11):e0277238. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277238. PMID: 36395148; PMCID: PMC9671380.

Eric B. Elbogen, Megan Lanier, Sarah C. Griffin, Shannon M. Blakey, Jeffrey A. Gluff, H. Ryan Wagner, and Jack Tsai. A National Study of Zoom Fatigue and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Future Remote Work. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.Jul 2022.409-415.

“Misinformation” vs. “Disinformation”: Get Informed On The Difference

Transcript

Welcome ghouls to today’s episode of Mental Health is Horrifying. I’m your Horror Barbie host of darkness — Candis Green— Psychotherapist and all around spooky bitch podcasting from my bat-filled cave in Toronto, Canada. So here we are in the month of January and where I live in Toronto, it’s freezing, it’s snowy and a slush-apocalypse at the same time, it gets dark at like 3pm, it’s the depths of winter for sure. So it’s like — I don’t want to leave my house to hang out with anybody! Do you?! But my thirst for spooky never stops soooo… do you want to do a séance over Zoom? Come on, it’ll be fun.

On today’s episode, I’m going to be taking a trip down memory lane to everyone’s favourite year — 2020— you remember, that glorious time when we were all freaked out of our minds beyond measure due to a little thing called the Covid-19 pandemic. Yup, it’s the sleeper hit about a Zoom séance gone awry during they height of lockdown — Host.

I remember watching this movie when it came out in July 2020 — the PEAK of lockdown — like we were locked the EFF down and when I watched this, I was both absolutely terrified and I also thought that it was a complete stroke of genius. Host captures the off the charts anxiety present during this time period so well and channels it through a group of girls who really should be taking this whole seance thing more seriously. Piss off the pandemic ghosts and they will HAUNT your ass.

Okay — so let’s get right into it. Let’s talk about Host and its portrayal of lockdown anxiety.

Movie synopsis:

Boom — you’re in a a Zoom meeting. 

The year is 2020 and there’s a pandemic. You’ve been ordered to lockdown in your home so you’ve taken to attending weekly Zoom meetings with your friends to stay in touch and hopefully preserve your sanity. Your friend Haley wants to spice things up for the call this week, and has arrange a medium to join you to perform a séance. 

So there you all are — Haley (whose brilliant idea this all was), Jemma, Radina, Emma, Caroline, and Teddy being led through a séance by Seylan, who is very clear in emphasizing that you should not dick around with the spirits and piss them off. It’s rude and they dont’ like it, okay?

Teddy only stays a short while and leaves the meeting after suggesting hey perform a drinking game every time Seylan says “astral plane” (which is like, 4 by the way). Jemma isn’t taking this seriously either and pretty much delivers an Oscar-worthy performance convincing everyone on the call that she feels the presence of a ghost named Jack, who she says is a school friend who committed suicide. Everyone believes her and starts feeling the heebie geebies when Seylan’s internet suddenly cuts out and she leaves the call. Jemma suddenly laughs and admits to the group that she made the whole Jack thing up because she was getting bored and Haley is PISSED. 

But then, just when you think this whole thing is one big joke, very scary things start actually happening in the tiny Zoom squares! Haley's chair is violently pulled backwards by an unseen force, the legs of a hanging corpse briefly appear in Caroline's attic when she goes to investigate a noise, and Emma's wine glass suddenly shatters out of nowhere. Haley points her instant camera down the hallway to take a photo of her living room, which shows a ghostly figure hanging from the ceiling. No ma’am!

As the girls panic, Haley manages to get back in touch with Seylan and tell her what happened, prompting Seylan to ask the spirit a series of yes or no questions; using this method, she quickly confirms that the spirit is not a friendly one. Seylan explains that Jemma's prank, may have allowed a Tulpa — a demon that is summoned by group think — to take on the guise of “Jack". This is very bade news, so she gives them instructions on how to close the séance, but the demon interrupts her and she is disconnected again before the girls fully to close the circle using her advice. But they believe the ordeal to be over and the demon to have gone bak to hell or wherever, so the members of the group begin to leave the call. But then more horrible things happen. Radina leaves the room to find boyfriend body hanging behind her. Caroline's Zoom background, which shows a looping video of her doing chores, makes the others think she cannot hear them before the real Caroline suddenly has her face smashed into the camera. Forgetting to switch off a filter that superimposes masks and face paint onto her, Emma turns her camera towards her living room, where the filter places a mask on an invisible figure which then turns to look at her. She runs away and scatters flour on the floor, showing the footprints of the demon approaching her. Her kitchen cupboards burst open before the demon attacks her, but she escapes into her room.

It’s scary! 

The Zoom demon begins killing the girls one by one in terrible and violent ways so Haley and Jemma start arguing and blame each other before Haley is pulled out of the room. Jemma, who lives around the corner from Haley, immediately leaves her home to help. Teddy returns to the call all doo de doo de doo having no idea what the hell just happened to see only Emma remaining, and a warning pops up to remind the group that the call will end in 10 minutes unless they upgrade to the premium version of Zoom. Unaware of everything that has occurred, Teddy believes Emma is pranking him, but then the demon attacks him and sets him on fire.

Emma, now the only person still active in the call, fearfully turns her camera to the doorway of her room after her door suddenly opens. She throws a blanket, which drapes itself over an invisible human shape. Terrified, she opens her window to flee, but accidentally falls to her death. Oopsie. Jemma, having fled her place to get to Haley who looked like she really needed some help, arrives at Haley's home. Via the open Zoom call on Haley's laptop, she discovers that both Emma and Teddy are dead. The demon throws a wine bottle at her head and starts to destroy the kitchen. Jemma recovers and finds Haley hiding under her desk, with the pair attempting to escape the house using the flash of Haley's instant camera to light the way. The demon suddenly appears in the final flash of light, lunging towards us all looking super scary and gnarly, as the Zoom call timer abruptly expires because they were using the free version an did not upgrade to the paid version for only $21.49 a month. Total waste.

Movie background info:

Yo — this movie is only 56 minutes long. 56 minutes! How awesome is that?! It’s so effective and jarring in such a short period of time. I assume this was a deliberate decision to reflect the brief nature of Zoom meetings (which are 40 minutes if you have a free account), but I also think what is so incredible is that director Rob Savage was somehow able to get enough mental distance from the experience of Covid and lockdown, which was so smothering and total and consuming, to be reflective enough to create this film and share a message about the horrors of this time period. 

This movie all came to be because Savage, who like everyone else was having Zoom hangouts with his friends during lockdown, decided to play a prank on them and told them he heard something in his attic, went to investigate, and was attacked by a demon while his friends looked on in horror. This little stunt went viral, and propelled the creation of Shudder original Host, which actually has a very similar scene in the movie.

The film was shot through Zoom with full pandemic restrictions in place, so Savage directed the actors remotely while they were in charge of their own cameras, lighting, sound, makeup, practical effects and stunts. Host has proven to be a wild success and has propelled Savage to horror stardom, securing a three picture deal with Blumhouse, and having since released another found footage horror, Dashcam, along with The Boogeyman (starring my favourite Chris — Chris Messina. 

So I have a running list of movies I want to cover for this podcast. And there’s a section of that list for these *I dont’ know!!* kind of movies, because either I’m intimidated to do them because they’re so incredible and I don’t know how to properly quantify a masterpiece such as Scream — OR they’re just so scary to me! And Host was definitely on that *I don’t know!!* list because — well first of all I’m a total baby and somehow the most unlikely horror fan ever because I scare so easily — but also there’s something about found footage that is so spooky. It’s the sense of realism, the shaky camerawork that disorients you and then whips around and BAM there’s a ghost! And I think the real lack of typical Hollywood fare that makes you feel like yeah this is just a movie, no big deal. But Host joins a club of other terrifying found footage horror movies like of course Blair Witch Project (whose ending still haunts my dreams), Paranormal Activity, Hell House LLC, Cloverfield, V/H/S, and REC.

And what’s more is that Host now joins an emerging horror genre — tech or social media horror — where the entire movie is told largely through a social media platform like Missing, Searching,  Deadstream, The Cleansing Hour, Unfriended, and Cam. 

Because you know what? Sometimes the overuse of these platforms is a horror unto itself. Which brings me to my next point about the loneliness and isolation of lockdown. 

Loneliness and Isolation:

One of the strongest determinants of mental health is human connection and well — Covid really did a number on that, didn’t it? Although quarantines and lockdown restrictions were implemented in the interest of public safety and so as not to overwhelm hospitals, unfortunately they had extremely severe impacts on people’s mental health — in particular, populations on either end of the age spectrum: the elderly and young adults. Elderly populations who are already more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness as they are functionally highly dependent on family members or supports by community services, and young adults who are maybe living alone, going to university, or in a very social time of their lives who heavily rely on these connections and opportunities for growth.

And like ugh — do you want me to go over some numbers? Like do we really want to hear how bad this all was for everyone’s mental health? Okay I’ll just do a few in general terms because it’s all such a huge bummer we are all still collectively traumatized by BUT HERE WE GO — okay so in terms of adverse mental health indicators… basically all indicators increased. Like all of them. Controlling for reported numbers prior to the pandemic, and a lot of these numbers are from 2021 but there was a marked increase in substance use and related deaths and in particular opioid addiction and related fatalities, an increase in depression and anxiety, an increase in suicides, an increase in gun violence, and increase in feelings of hopelessness, and an increase in absenteeism from school once they re-opened. 

And listen man — all the restrictions were implemented with the intention of safeguarding our physical health right — but this is a mental health podcast so that’s what I’m talking about cool?

This is all incredibly significant because it’s not like things went back to normal after the declaration of the end of Covid as a public health emergency in May of 2023 occurred. There has been a ripple effect, and many people continue to grapple with worsened mental health and wellbeing. 

*transition*

Host has this amazing way of making its viewers feel that sense of not only isolation — but also confusion and disorientation. To preserve its sense of realness, the film has no music or score, so as an audience, we are not able to rely on the standard horror tropes to ground us and give us a sense of what to expect. And of course with this all being on Zoom, when there is a scary sound, or unknown movement in the background, we are again scattering to try and figure out where it came from. We don’t know where the monster is, we don’t know where the danger is coming from, we’re scared, we don’t know what’s going on, we are lost and confused and alone — which is like damn well if that isn’t exactly the feeling we had during lockdown I don’t know what is. 

Final Girls Club — Dream Walk With Me Ad:

Hey final girls — speaking of getting haunted during a virtual meeting, registration is now open for the February meeting of the Final Girls Club where you’ll get to experience Dream Walk With Me — a live, experiential dreamwork journey where we will uncover the hidden meanings behind the symbols, archetypes and messages held within your dreams. Early bird final girl rate is in effect until February 1. Register by visiting manymoonstherapy.com/finalgirlsclub. 


Tulpa, The Anxiety Demon:

Another really effective way that this movie captures the anxiety and horror of lockdown is through the demon that haunts the Zoom call, which we learn from Seylan the medium is called a Tulpa.

The Tulpa is a concept originally from Tibetan Buddhism and found in later traditions of mysticism and the paranormal of a materialized being or thought-form. Rob Savage interpreted it in this film as a demon that’s summoned by group think. With everyone concentrating intently on the same idea, something becomes manifest. So the idea is that as Jemma, when they’re in this hyper connected state, she tells them the faulty story of Jack, she places this image of the hanged boy in all of their heads, which allows this thing to manifest. And as Seylan said — it is RUDE to disrespect the ghosts — so the Tulpa is created, and punishes them through a lot of hauntings that have to do with hanging. 

So in this interpretation, the Tulpa is kind of like an anxiety demon. During lockdown like — how many times a day did you check the news? How many hours a day did you spend doom scrolling on your phone? Like a million and we were ALL doing that, and we all thought about Covid and what it meant so much that it created this big scary anxiety demon that slept at the foot of our beds every night! 

We washed our mail, we applied for government assistance that we had to pay back and still can’t afford, we stayed the hell away from grandma at Christmas, we attended Zoom funerals, and baby showers, and graduations, we missed out on important rites of passage, we didn’t wear masks when we were told to save them for healthcare workers, and then we wore them all the time, and then we got really into making sourdough to try and stave off the depression, and then all the men had man buns (which like I'm not necessarily mad at…), and we banged pots and pans for healthcare workers — until people started protesting them for some reason I’ll never understand in my human existence — we drank a lot of wine, we tried to hang out in parks until the government threatened to ticket us… and we were afraid of everything — and guess what? That doesn’t just go away.

Tulpa the anxiety demon lingers, and continues to visit us and worry us about an unseeable evil, an unknown doom, a what if, that now lives in our collective consciousness. 


What’s Real?:

During lockdown, we were plunged into this sort of collective confusion. It was a reality none of us recognized, or had really ever experienced before. Things that we normally held on to that made us feel safe — like jobs, everyday human interactions, schools, our governments and even healthcare systems — were like this deck of cards that was thrown in the air and we didn’t know where everything would land. 

It was hard to know what was real a lot of the time, with Covid birthing what many argue to be the age of misinformation, and I guess also, disinformation. New stories all began coming with disclaimers, as did any posts on social media sites using Covid keywords. People were booted off platforms for spreading misinformation, or disinformation, and everyone was confused, and angry, and anxious, and didn’t know what they could believe. 

What differentiates misinformation from disinformation is intent. Both spread false or misleading information, but misinformation may be unintentional (as in, you didn’t know better) whereas misinformation is purposely misleading. 

And this is so much of what goes on in Host. How are the girls supposed to know what to believe in, or know what’s even real? For Haley, she is super keen on doing this séance with her friends. She has done them before, just not over Zoom, and really believe in the power and ability to connect with spirits through the veil and wants to share that with them. Jemma and a few of the other girls, on the other hand, think this is all a bunch of hocus pocus and make fun of the séance and Seylan from the get go. 

Jemma goes one step further and introduces the story of Jack, which is an example of disinformation, because she purposely intends to deceive her friends. And for a long while there — they believe her! Everyone gets all emo and they’re all like oh my god, poor Jack this is such an emotional story oh no I’m scared until she starts laughing and then they all start getting murdered.

This happens with Caroline too, when she shows them the looping video of herself doing chores in her bedroom that she made out of boredom, and then at one point during the call it just starts playing and in all the chaos — we kind of just take it for what it is and believe that Caroline is fine and alive and well — until BAM her face smashes into the computer screen all bloody and gross and Caroline is definitely not fine. 

This is a very chaotic Zoom call and it’s used very effectively to disorient and confuse us — while somehow also making us feel trapped inside the meeting with these girls, bringing us back to this claustrophobic feeling of living our life through screens during lockdown. 

Conclusion: 

It seems unlikely that the coronavirus will ever go away. People continue to get sick with this virus, people continue to experience long Covid and other complications, and people continue to die. And I think having gone through the peak of the pandemic beginning in 2020 with things like lockdowns, social distancing, isolation, illness, and death — I think we’re experiencing a sort of collective whiplash. We don’t have any distance from this thing. We’re still reeling. I think every generation goes through a collective trauma like this, whether it be war, economic depression, illness, or what have you. And this is ours — one of them at least. It has forever changed us in ways I think we haven’t come to grips with it. It has changed our trust in each other and in the institutions that uphold our societies, it has changed our sense of certainty, our relationships to meaning — it has changed everything really.  

And this is all really depressing. But do you know what I think is amazing? The one thing that has made this bearable, the one thing that has helped improve people’s mental health an wellbeing the most? That’s each other. It’s human connection. That’s finding ways to be together, to share our humanity, share a meal, share a dance, share a laugh and a cry, in a world that became so inhuman for a while. That’s literally the only way we get through this thing — it’s together. 

Outro:

And that my ghouls is the story of Host. This episode was rough to make because I had totally buried all my lockdown memories in a deep dark cave somewhere and they all came flooding back. Who made me do this movie?! Oh wait it was me — whoopsie! God — go outside and lick a persons’s face or something, okay? Thank you for journeying into the depths with me and I hope to find you in the darkness again soon. 

Visit my website manymoonstherapy.com to register for the the February edition of the Final Girls Club — Dream Walk With Me — where we will journey into our dreams to discover the hidden meanings behind their symbols, metaphors, and archetypes. You can follow me on Instagram at @manymoonstherapy and you can also learn more about me and my services through my website manymoonstherapy.com. 

OR you can also howl at the moon and I will hear your call.

Bright blessings.