The Host

When I rented The Host, I did so because my husband wanted to watch something creepy, sci-fi, and/or eerie.  I remembered that this movie was filmed in New Mexico in part, so decided to give it a try.  (We like picking out locations from the State we live in when we watch a film.)

What I didn’t realize when I rented it is that it was written by Stephenie Meyer, the woman who wrote The Twilight Saga.  Having just reviewed those films at the end of the year, I thought I’d share my thoughts on this one for my first review in awhile.

In this story, souls from an alien civilization have come to earth to inhabit humans and experience life in a flesh and blood body.  Once they enter a “host,” the human’s memories disappear and therefore they are believed to be gone forever.  But one human, Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), somehow is able to share consciousness with the alien soul inhabiting her body, who is called Wanderer.

The interesting thing about these aliens is that they make earth “better,” less violent, more peace loving and how humans really should be.  But it seems to me their individuality is missing when they inhabit human bodies.  They are all too much the same with wooden smiles and an eagerness to do for others, but not necessarily for themselves.

The Seeker (Diane Kruger) is driven to hunt down Wanderer/Melanie in order to find more host humans for souls from the other planet.  She is as cold as steel and single minded in her pursuit of humans.  Wanderer/Melanie manages to escape her clutches, and makes her way to where her uncle is hiding out, a place in Shiprock in a cave that he has made into a safe haven for other human survivors.

The Seeker eventually shows up in the area hunting down Wanderer/Melanie, who is now being held captive by the surviving humans who are distrustful of her.  Could Melanie really still exist even though another soul has invaded her body?

The thing I couldn’t help but think about during this film is that it’s really not that far fetched as a plot or a concept.  After all, who are we but souls that come to earth to inhabit a body in order to experience this planet and life on it?  Of course we don’t take over someone else’s body, but rather we inhabit a fresh, new one.

We watched the entire movie, which was rather low key, really not that much violence, with enough going on to keep us engaged.  Ms. Meyer has really keyed in on her teenage girl audience once again with a story such as this one. Rated PG-13, there is nothing remotely racy about the relationships in this film.  It is chaste throughout most of it, although lovemaking is shown at one point, very tastefully done.  Would I recommend it to you?  I think so; just don’t expect too much in the way of action sequences.