For the diehard Host fans, the movie coming out on March 29 gave them a chance to watch and enjoy the visually captivating and alien invated world that Melanie Stryder lives in.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with the story, the beginning of the movie could be very confusing. Within the first five minutes we see Melanie (played by Saoirse Ronan) fight off “souls” and then proceeding to jump out of a window trying to kill herself. She doesn’t succeed and is then taken to a hospital and treated for the wounds (which consist of her entire body being broken). The doctor then implants a soul named Wanderer (Wanda) into her. A soul being an alien species that have traveled to the earth in order to restore peace among the humans. Having a soul implanted in you causes you to have no control over your body and your eyes to turn slightly blue on the inside.
At first, Wanda tries to help the souls by giving them information from Melanie’s mind. However, Melanie’s own soul is still alive within her. She fights with Wanda and eventually talks Wanda out of giving the other souls any more information. Wanda sees in Melanie’s memories that she was trying to find food for her little brother (played by Chandler Canterbury) and boyfriend Jared Howe (played by Max Irons). Wanda lets Melanie lead her to her uncle Jeb’s house in the desert, but not before enduring some fights with other souls.
When they reach the desert they have to walk to find Melanie’s Uncle’s cabin. This takes longer than anticipated and nearly kills them, but when they rest under a tree her uncle finds them. Unfortunately when they see Melanie’s body and Wanda’s eyes they lose all trust in her. Wanda then is blindfolded and taken to the cabin, which turns out to be a very elaborate underground set of tunnels.
As soon as they reach the cabin Wanda is left in a room under careful watch. She is rarely let out of her room, and when she is her eyes are covered with a blindfold so she doesn’t know where she is. Eventually Ian (played by Jake Abel), Uncle Jeb (played by William Hurt) and Jamie find out that Melanie is still alive within Wanda. However, Ian’s brother Kyle (played by Boyd Holbrook) doesn’t believe that Melanie could still be alive and tries to kill Wanda. He doesn’t succeed and instead nearly drowns in a fast flowing stream that is next to them. Wanda pulls him out though and gains the trust of the rest of the people.
She is completely blindsided when she walks into the doctors area later in the movie and sees dead souls on a table due to the doctor trying to extract them. She runs away and although Melanie tries to calm her down she tells her to leave her alone. Melanie then stays silent for three days and only starts talking to Wanda again when she kisses Jared to make Melanie jealous, even though she liked Ian.
While the drama in the cabin takes place, the souls are in search of Wanda. Eventually the head soul named Seeker finds them and almost shoots Wanda but Uncle Jeb shot her in the shoulder before she could. They then left her in the same room they confided Wanda in earlier and decided to try and extract the soul from her. With Wanda’s help they successfully remove the soul and send it off.
As the movie came to an end Wanda requested to be removed from Melanie. After much argument the procedure was done. A month later Wanda woke up in a new body even though she asked not to. They quickly told her that the body was dying without a soul in it. She was happy to have saved the body, live with them, love Ian, and enjoy her life among the humans as if she was one of them to begin with.