After a wave of pandemic-era Zoom horror, we now get the inevitable pandemic-era Airbnb horror, another solid filming option for a limited cast in a contained space.
Horror and Airbnbs feel like they were made for each other. Sinister houses–haunted, invaded, or claustrophobic–are a horror staple, and staying in a stranger’s home is an inherently unsettling concept. It’s intimacy, estranged.
Superhost leans into all those anxieties, and it adds another that’s just as real and contemporary: fear of your online stock dropping. People have always worried about their reputations, but the internet has accelerated how quickly someone can rocket up or come crashing down. It’s faster, bigger, louder, and–thanks to pervasive monetization–your whole livelihood can depend on it. That’s the case with vloggers Claire and Teddy (Sara Canning and Osric Chau), whose YouTube channel specializes in reviewing these kind of vacation rentals. Lately their channel has been, as Claire anxiously points out, bleeding subscribers. They’ve gone from paying their own bills to relying on Teddy’s parents. While she obsesses over how to get their numbers back up, Teddy plans a proposal–one that’s probably not going to come at a good time.
Their latest house has terrific ratings. It’s isolated–of course–with spotty cell phone signal–naturally, but the architecture is stunning. Right from the start, however, little things go wrong. The door code doesn’t work, and the downstairs toilet doesn’t flush. The house has security cameras in almost all the rooms. And then there’s the host, Rebecca (Gracie Gillam). Rebecca is all manic smiles and energy and too-long pauses, and for a while, she, Claire, and Teddy are caught in a kind of sinister feedback loop. Something goes wrong, Rebecca goes into over-the-top apology and repair mode to try to fix it, her efforts are creepy and invasive, she openly frets about how all this will affect their review, and Teddy awkwardly tries to assure her that it’s fine, even though it’s getting less and less fine all the time. Maybe you shrug off Rebecca coming in uninvited early in the morning to fix the toilet … maybe. But what do you do when you find she’s already there when you wake up, making you pancakes? When, in her absence, you thank her for them with a little wave to the security cameras, and the speaker crackles, “You’re welcome,” revealing she can hear all your conversations? That’s when you have to get the hell out of there.
The problem is that Claire sees enormous flashing dollar signs over Rebecca’s head. Claire has been pushing Teddy for meaner and more aggressive coverage, like a past video called “The Bitch From Draper” (which will come back to haunt them), which Teddy uneasily dismisses as clickbait. Rebecca, Claire can tell, will give good video. She could even go viral. They need to get as much of her as possible, because this is the kind of wild story that could put them back on top. It’s just not the kind of wild story they’ll necessarily survive.
Superhost eventually leans too much on Rebecca-as-specific-person as the source of horror, and easing up on exploring the creepy potential of Airbnbs, reputation monetization, and click-chasing takes away a little bit of the impact as the movie goes on. But it’s hard to quibble about the choice too much, because Gillam goes all-in as Rebecca and is goofily, terrifyingly riveting. (Claire’s right: this woman is gold.) It all feels fresh, well-made, and genuinely alert to current anxieties, and that makes it a great–if not essential–new bit of horror.
