The movie “The Host” is a movie adaptation of the book with the same title by Stephanie Meyer. Some people may question how anything created by the same woman that made the Twilight Saga can be good. Those people should be prepared to be surprised. “The Host” is a surprisingly good movie.
The movie tells the story of Melanie Stryder, one of the few humans left after a group of supposedly peaceful aliens take over the Earth. The aliens have taken over the Earth by inhabiting the bodies of humans, which act as their hosts. After Melanie is captured, attempting to escape the aliens, one of them is placed inside of her body, but Melanie is not willing to give up without putting up a fight first. The alien that has been placed inside of her goes by the name Wanderer. Wanderer looks inside of Melanie’s memories and begins to inform the Seekers, aliens who search for the human resistance, of other humans still out there. These other humans include Jamie, Melanie’s kid brother, and Jared, the man that Melanie is in love with. However, the more that Wanderer tries to find out about them, the more Melanie fights back to protect the ones she loves. In a final effort to try and save the ones she loves, Melanie takes control of her body back from Wanderer. This leaves them stranded in the desert where Melanie thinks Jared and Jamie have come. Due to being stranded, Wanderer is forced to walk through the desert in search of any help. Dehydrated, exhausted and severely sunburned, Wanderer eventually passes out. When she wakes she realizes that she has been found by Jeb, Melanie’s uncle. He quickly discovers that his niece has been taken over by one of the aliens, evident by the bright silvery blue ring around her eyes.
This leads the viewer deeper into this post apocalyptic world when Melanie and Wanderer are taken to the commune that Jeb set up inside a system of caves in what was once Arizona. Here they discover that humanity has not been almost wiped out, like they originally thought. In Jeb’s caves, there is a whole group of humans who remain uninhabited. Amongst these humans, Melanie and Wanderer finally find Jamie and Jared. Jared, however, is less than pleased to find that the alien, who is inhabiting his best friend and girlfriend, has arrived. The poor existing relations between the aliens and the humans mean that tensions run high in the caves, which leads to all manner of issues and confrontations. However, there is also the lingering external threat of the Seekers. The Seeker who had been having Wanderer search Melanie’s mind is still on the hunt for them, convinced that Melanie has taken over their body completely. With all of these new threats on the horizon, new alliances and enemies are discovered.
One of the most distinct of these features Wanderer and Ian. Ian is a man within Jeb’s commune who tries to kill Wanderer, along with a few other of the humans, when she first arrives. As he gets to know her better, though, he starts to see her as a person and they grow closer. This leads to the fascinating dynamic and interactions between Melanie and Wanderer about whose body it is. There are two minds in one body that love two different men. With the two of their minds always present, there is no way that either of them can truly be with the one that they want
Overall, this is a good movie that does a pretty good job of transferring the psychological conflicts and situations from the book to the screen. This can often be a difficult task because books can give a much better insight into the character’s minds, especially when there are two people sharing that mind. However, the movie does an exemplary job of making that work on screen. It is most done by the actress’s different voice intonations for Melanie and Wanderer but it works well. All in all, this is a good movie to spend any evening watching but beware, it might make viewers start to question their place in the world and the world itself.
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