Our protagonists, monsters and surroundings are horror archetypes at this point – youngish attractive white characters anonymous demonic spirits that want to torment and kill them and big empty house(s). The premise, from writers Rob Savage, Jed Shepherd and Gemma Hurley, may seem a little unassuming, as six friends are roped into a seance and may not live to tell the tale. This rule holds just as true in 2020 – and in the same vein, Host, the new British-made laptop-horror movie that’s leaving audiences shaking, is a film about our anxieties around coronavirus.

Marking the dawn of science fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can be read as an expression of people’s enlightenment-era fears surrounding scientists playing God.

When critics look back to the very earliest horrors, we see King Kong as a metaphor for the Great Depression and the perceived threat of black men to white society. Whether or not we know it at the time, horror stories have always reflected our societal anxieties.

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