Warning! Spoilers for Host ahead.
Rob Savage's webcam horror film Host begins with a seance gone wrong. This story of horror and malevolent entities is a fictional story that merges with the bizarre fact that the Zoom meeting attendees are participating in an esoteric practice of astral projection. While it seems to be all fun and games for the friends, it quickly goes awry when the seance and its practices are not respected by someone in the group.
Astral projection and the astral body has been used in famous film franchises such as Insidious (2010). It has proven to be a popular means of evoking fear. The first horror movie to feature astral projection was Ray Danton's Psychic Killer in 1975. In Host, Haley hires a practicing medium named Seylan to assist in a seance that will be conducted solely through Zoom. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is entirely common to use this means to communicate with friends and loved ones, but it is uncommon to see such an intimate practice unfold via the internet.
Seylan instructs Haley, Jemma, Emma, Radina, and Caroline to imagine that they are all forming a circle like they would be if the seance were taking place in person. Undoubtedly, this was the first mistake in a list of many that they made when they approached the astral projection based seance. Host does not rely solely on astral projection but it is the one they utilize the most throughout the film. It is an amalgamation of traditional seances, conjuring, and astral communication. The film has a unique way of tackling the paranormal subject matter, in some ways it is entirely factual and informative to anyone debating on conducting their own seance.
Host & The History Of Astral Communication
Astral projection, in essence, is a meditative state in which an individual leaves their physical body and has the ability to roam the astral realm, which is inhabited by wandering souls, demons, and more. The practice varies based on religion or personal practice but the main commonality is projecting out of the body. In Host, Seylan requests that each of the members of the seance and Zoom chatroom imagine that they have a rope tied from their waist that will keep them grounded to the realm of the living. The rope method is one of the most common techniques to ensure that an individual safely returns from the astral realm. It is bizarre that it's used in Host because those involved never leave their physical bodies.
Instead, Jemma tells a false story of a man who she knew that hung himself. In doing so, she allowed for any spirit roaming the astral plane to enter the physical world and manifest as what she described. Seylan refers to it as a "mask". Psychics familiar with the practice warn against newcomers using it as a means of communicating with the dead due to the uncertainty of contacting a demon instead of a loved one. Just as Dalton's astral body in Insidious became the target of a demon, Jemma allowed for a malevolent spirit to latch onto the group. The biggest discrepancy in Host is the fact that Seylan instructs them all to utilize their astral forms when, in traditional seances using this method, the psychic is the only one that does so. It may be due to the fact that they are using Zoom but, regardless, as a seasoned psychic she shouldn't have agreed to do it in the first place.
Ultimately, Host can serve as a warning to anyone who is debating on using astral projection in any means of communication or travel. It is an unstable practice that has various components which, when not done correctly, can lead to disaster. Host uniquely captures astral projection, and while it may not be entirely based in one specific part of the psychic method, it does feature an array of factual elements that are familiar to a multitude of practitioners.