FILM REVIEW: YOUR HOST ESP RATING: 4/5

Props to my cousin’s son, Joey Miller, for churning out some distinctively bloody ingenuity for the horror genre.

Having hit acclaimed streaming services such as Apple TV and Google Play (to rent or buy) in the past week, the Eye-based writer had his script picked up, and tackled by director DW Medoff (2023’s Pollen).

But most importantly, was the stellar signing of Hollywood star Jackie Early Haley – who had already cut his teeth in the horror playground by portraying the iconic Freddy Krueger in 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot – with a pantheon of A-list movies under his belt, ranging from Watchmen and Shutter Island to London Has Fallen and Lincoln.

The movie starts in fairly generic genre-fashion, as four early twentysomethings – Anita (Ella Rae-Smith from acclaimed Netflix mini-series The Stranger), James (Avatar: The Way of Water’s Jamie Flatters), Matthew (David Angland) and Melissa (Joella Rae) – head out to a countryside retreat, but end up being stalked – and becoming unwilling contestants in a sadistic game show hosted by Earle Haley’s disturbingly-masked serial killer.

While initially adhering to horror tropes associated with films (quite unavoidably so) such as Saw, Hostel and Escape Room, it’s Earle Haley’s delightful turn as the mentally-unhinged protagonist Barry Miller, that instantaneously takes the movie up a notch, as his four participants are chained in a gloomy makeshift basement to the backdrop of classic gameshow staging.

Here Barry forces the foursome to take part in a serious of dangerous challenges – from ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot’ to the ‘Wheel of Pain’ – where each decision could lead them to a gruesome death.

But the genius in the scripting comes from a multitude of different angles. From Barry’s sympathetic (from a certain perspective) back story linking him with the contestants, to the realisation that you must eventually face your cardinal sins – which has taken the lead character to the edge of his sanity – this gets more compelling minute-by-minute after the straightforward first half-an-hour set-up.

And what should put this on your streaming ‘popcorn-crunching’ horror radar is without doubt the highly inventive death scenes. Not for many a year has there been such brutal consequences for genre fodder like there is here.

These scenes alone make it well worth you hosting this at home – with my fiancée spending most of the last half of the movie with her hands over her face.

Which in itself is what a horror film is all about right? And with Halloween just round the corner everyone’s a winner . . .

Take a bow Mr Miller.

ESP Rating: 4/5

Gavin Miller

Your Host (18 TBC – Not Yet Rated)

Rent or Buy On Apple TV & Google Play

Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Ella-Rae Smith, Jamie Flatters, Joella Rae & David Angland

Running Time: 1 Hr 31 Mins

Writer: Joey Miller

Director: DW Medoff